


Save The Date

by JulietsEmoPhase, Mercutio_Snow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nightmare Before Christmas Fusion, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Dimension Travel, First Kiss, Fluff, Halloween, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mild Smut, Mutual Pining, Nightmare Before Christmas References, Pirates, Skeletons, St Patrick's day, spring festival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-02 15:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 62,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8673070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulietsEmoPhase/pseuds/JulietsEmoPhase, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercutio_Snow/pseuds/Mercutio_Snow
Summary: Draco is the Darkling Prince of Halloween Land…or is he?  Wasn’t he back at Hogwarts for his final year of school?  Weren’t he and Harry just starting to get along?  At least he has started to remember; Harry has no clue he’s not where he’s supposed to be.  However, he has had the strangest dream about a blond boy he’s never met, but seems to be in love with…Time is running out and it’s up to Draco to find Harry and get them back to the real world, before they are lost forever.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Back in early October I decided to write a little fic for Halloween, taking inspiration from one of my favourite films, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Things got rapidly out of hand however, and several weeks later I had a 60K word novel-length fic. Whoops! I’ve really enjoyed working on this though, so I hope you enjoy reading it!
> 
> It is 18 chapters long with an epilogue, so I’ve decided to release it 3 chapters at a time, every other day. But it is definitely finished and unless there’s an absolute disaster, I won’t deviate from that schedule!
> 
> It’s not just a Halloween fic, it’s also a Christmas fic, so it seemed perfect to start posting it on November 27th-28th, as that’s halfway between the two holidays :) 
> 
> There’s a lot of action as well as feels in this one. There is also some allusions to horror themes (but not many) and one mild smutty reference. I also *accidentally* seem to have written in some delightful Pansmione flirting. Not so much that it should bother you if it's not your cup of tea, but I certainly had fun with it lol. Other than that, I don’t think there are any other warnings you need? It’s just one long ball of fluff really! 
> 
> I have to thank my fantastic content editor and brother @mercutio_snow for all his help with this story. He's been an absolute rock and this fic definitely wouldn't be what it is without him. What would I do without you dude?! 
> 
> Juliet xxx

   Prince Draco gazed out over the city from where he stood at his bedroom balcony.  The pale sun was climbing incrementally higher in the grey sky, bringing another day to the Land of Halloween.  He had been there since dawn, his hands resting on the wrought iron railings, peering down like a gargoyle at the twisted tips of the city’s buildings. 

   He had awoken with something in his chest unsettling him, although he couldn’t say exactly what, and it was with an absent mind that he’d dressed and readied himself an hour or so before.  But even after so long in contemplation, he still had no idea of the source of his melancholy. 

   The people were starting to rise, and a gentle hubbub was mounting as they went about their business.  After the thrill and excitement of the previous night’s annual festivities, the cobbled streets gave off a sleepy air, of a general sense of a job well done. 

   Coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to find any answers watching the world go by, Draco decided to vacate the royal castle and mingle amongst the masses.  It would do him good to hear their stories of how their hauntings had gone in the Land of the Living, and maybe he could shake the strange feeling that had settled in his heart. 

   He crossed his large bedroom, nodding to the spiders as they remade their webs around his four-poster bed.  “Good morning sirs,” he said, tipping his head and fetching his black top hat and tails in order to head outside.

   “Good morning Prince Draco!” the spiders squeaked back in unison. 

   He took himself onto the landing, past the broken mirrors and muttering suits of armour.  “Good morning Beatrice,” he said to the translucent maid at the top of the sweeping staircase.

   “Ahh good morning Your Highness,” she said happily.  “It’s a wonderful gloomy day in the kingdom.  Are you going into town?”

   Draco inclined his head in affirmation as he slipped his arms through his morning coat.  She was always a dear, old Beatrice, and he felt his spirits lifted a little just to have her fussing over him. 

   “Well, I’m glad to see you’ve bundled up.  Breakfast is served if you’re hungry before you go?”

   He wasn’t, but he thanked her anyway, and complimented her on the dustiness of the banisters. 

   “Oh,” she said coyly.  “Thank you Your Highness, I do try.”  She sprinkled a little more down as she floated on by, before vanishing through the wall. 

   The Weeping Queen was already seated in the breakfast room when he entered, sipping cold tea from under her black veil.  “Draco, darling,” she said, noticing his attire.  “Will you not eat?” 

   Draco shook his head as he kissed his mother’s cheek through the lace.  “I’m feeling rather restless, I thought I might walk down to the hanging tree, see what news the skeletons have of last night.”

   The queen frowned, or so Draco could tell through the material over her face, and shifted beneath her skirts.  “I’m sure the mayor will release a full statement later,” she assured him.  The mayor had held all the real power in Halloween since The Twilight King’s demise several years ago, and although Draco knew that as well as the next citizen, he resented the idea of having to wait for his say-so on anything, let alone the All Hallows Eve report. 

   “I didn’t sleep well,” he said by way of an explanation.  “I fancy a stroll to clear the bats from the belfries.” 

   “Very well dear,” she sighed, and waved him off. 

   The air was wonderfully dank as he crossed over the drawbridge, and as he breathed in deep he counted how many sharks he could see in the slimy moat below.  “Morning ladies!” he called down.  They snapped their jaws playfully and growled a chorus of hellos. 

   Pumpkins lined the pavements, gossiping idly as Draco strolled into the city centre, and he listened to the buzzards as they cawed and swooped overhead.  He had half a mind to pop into Rag Doll’s and grab a bloodshake for breakfast, but he was still feeling out of sorts, and he figured too much iron might upset his stomach.  So instead he walked through the abbey, nodding a greeting to the headless monks as they tended to their ebony black horses.  The heads were perched in the window sills above them, shouting down instructions.  “No!” one cried down to its body.  “How many times – you’re brushing the _wrong end!”_

   The prince chuckled to himself, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets and minding his polished boots as he skirted around the horses’ droppings on the cobbles.  He still may not feel quite right, but at least walking around other people was giving him something else to think about. 

   _“Get!”_ a witch screeched to his right, lunging out the front door of a terraced house, brandishing her broomstick above her head.  _“Get OUT you troublesome pest!”_

   A small, stocky dog shot out from between her legs, followed closely by a ginger cat that stopped at the witch’s heels, hissing and arching its back.  The dog barked back up at the woman, whose pointy hat was askew as she shook her broom again. 

   “If I catch you sniffing around here again-” she began to threaten. 

   The dog was black with huge bat-like ears and a squashed up face.  He was wearing fake bat wings on a harness across his back, and looked wholly unconcerned by the old hag’s words.  Instead, he gave her a toothy smile, then lifted his leg and started to pee on the cobbled stones in front of her house. 

     “Oh you _menace!”_ she howled, and jerked as if to chase him off.  But the dog, having finished his business, merely shook himself and scampered off, his tongue lolling out as he grinned smugly. 

   Draco couldn’t help but smile too as the witch slammed her door shut again, and he carried on walking the same way as the dog.  “That was a bit rude now, wasn’t it?” he admonished playfully.  His mother had taught him never to be afraid of speaking to the people of the realm as they were all equal by All Hallowed law, and as funny as he thought the dog’s little display was, it was his duty to promote harmony. 

   The dog however turned his head and glanced up at him with a frown, then plonked his arse on the stone as he looked him up and down.  “And who exactly are you supposed to be, Sunshine?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice. 

   Draco blinked at him and watched as he scratched behind his ear with his back paw.  “Excuse me?” he asked, finding it hard not to be insulted. 

   The dog didn’t seem bothered though.  “You a new arrival?”

   “I am Draco, Darkling Prince and Lord of the Realm,” he said indignantly.  “And you’ll kindly address me as Your Highness.”

   The dog smacked his lips and stood, shaking himself and making the costume bat wings wiggle.  “Nah, you ain’t,” he said.  “I can tell, not like all these other numpties.  You weren’t here yesterday, and now you are.  And what with it being Halloween last night, I’m guessing you got pulled down.” 

   He started to trot away, and Draco was only able to stare at him for a moment, before hurrying after him.  “What the Devil are you talking about?” he asked, perplexed, but the little dog just sighed, bored.

   “Well,” he said, which with his rough accent sounded more like _“Wew.”_ “You found a portal I’m guessing, and they’re always weakest near the date of their own holiday.  Ringing any bells?” 

   “No,” Draco said, folding his arms. 

   The dog grunted.  “You found a doorway what looked like a pumpkin on a tree, and you fell through it.  Happens more often than you’d think.” 

   Draco stopped walking and let his hands fall, his gaze not quite focused on anything at all.  “What did you say?” he asked.

   “Pumpkin door – you remembering now?” the dog said, pausing to look up at him.  “If it’s your first day, you should still be able to remember.”

   Draco shook his head, dismissing the idea.  So what if he could picture a door like the dog was describing, that was just a case of using his imagination.  “I took part in the annual hauntings yesterday, just like I do every year,” he said.  “There was no pumpkin door, I slipped through the shadows in the cemetery like everyone else up into the Living Land and back again.  Nothing I haven’t done time and again.”  

   The dog shrugged.  “Suit yourself,” he said, unconcerned as he sniffed at the bottom of a drain pipe.  “What do I care if you never get home?”

   Draco drew himself up taller.  “I am home,” he said, but something tickled abruptly at the back of his mind.  The word ‘home’ made him think of a castle, sure, but it wasn’t the castle that loomed behind them.  It also made him think of a grand house, and a woman with light blond hair.  He shook his head and pushed that thought away.  His mother was back in the dining hall, finishing her breakfast and readying herself for a good day’s wailing. 

   “Tell me _exactly_ what you did yesterday,” the dog said, sitting himself down on his hip again.  “Take me through, from start to finish.”

   Draco frowned at such a silly question.  “Why should I?”

   The dog gave a little grown and then barked.  _“Ruff!_   Just answer the question…”  He rolled his eyes. _“Your Highness.”_

   Draco was irritated, but he also knew he hadn’t been feeling right since he had risen, so he figured he might as well play along with this nonsense for the time being.  “Well, I woke, washed, dressed especially for the day-”

   “What did you wear?”

   Draco thought that was an even more ridiculous thing to ask, but he found he couldn’t quite answer the question right away, like he thought he would.  Instead, he looked down at himself and pulled at his lace cravat.  “Much the same as this, I suppose.” 

   The dog huffed.  “You suppose?” he repeated.  “Give me details.”

   Draco opened his mouth again, trying to picture what shade of coat he’d worn, the design of his cufflinks, the cut of his boots.

   He found he couldn’t recall a single thing. 

   Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he was aware he had a whole wardrobe full of clothes; he knew which trousers went best with which shirts, he had a fine collection of capes and handkerchiefs and belts, and he had inherited a number of silk waistcoats from his father after his passing.  He had crafted a certain look, and now he found the people had come to expect it, so he supposed it wasn’t all that unusual he couldn’t quite pinpoint precisely what he had worn the day before. 

   “The waistcoat yesterday was navy,” he lied, thinking of one he had hanging up back in his room.  “The trousers dove grey.  Happy?” 

   He wasn’t sure what it meant to the dog to know either way, but it irked him he couldn’t answer properly.  He should just walk away, stop engaging with this ridiculous beast, but the odd feeling he’d woken up with was still lingering, and now this creature was challenging him on what he could remember, he wondered if the gaps in his mind were related. 

   “Hmmm,” said the dog, clearly not convinced.  “Okay, what did you eat, what was your dinner?”

   “Bat spleen soup,” said Draco immediately.  It was one of his favourites.  “With toadstool risotto and pumpkin…pumpkin…”   He blinked.  He knew he and his mother had dined on pumpkin rind, but he was also recalling a steaming hot pumpkin pie, with several scoops of melting ice cream.  He grimaced.  That sounded far too sweet for his liking, but he was seeing it quite clearly in his mind’s eye.  He was sat at a long table full of others around his age, all eating and making merry. 

   Who were they?  He was sure he didn’t know them.  Except…he had been sitting next to a girl he felt very familiar with, with jet black hair bobbed just under her ear lobes.  She had placed her hand on his knee, and leaned in to whisper to him.  _“Be patient,”_ were the words she’d uttered, but that was wrong – wrong wrong _wrong!_  

   “No,” Draco said, shaking his head.  The castle he turned to look up at now, his life-long home, had no such hall, and he’d never seen those people before.  He couldn’t have, they weren’t residents of Halloween Land, he was sure…wasn’t he? 

   “You alright there?” the dog asked with a modicum more sympathy. 

   “I’m fine,” Draco snapped.  He was probably getting confused with a bad dream.  That was what those images were most likely, and also the probable cause of his strange mood this morning. 

   “Sure,” the dog agreed in an infuriating placating tone.  “How about after that, after you went up and did your hauntings.  You remember going to bed?”

   Draco opened his mouth to say that of course he did, he’d woken up in his room as usual after all.  But he couldn’t quite picture himself specifically doing it last night.  He knew he normally changed into his night robe and read for an hour or so, listening to the groaning and the clanking of the castle to sooth him off to sleep.  But last night felt like a distant and hazy memory, not solid at all. 

   “Why can’t I remember?” he rasped, feeling a prick of fear dance up his spine. 

   The dog trotted over to him and rested a paw on his shiny boot.  “It’s alright Sunshine,” he said kindly, which surprised Draco somewhat.  “It’ll come back to you, just think.  What’s real?”

   _Here, this was real,_ Draco stubbornly thought.  This was his home town, he’d spent his whole life in Halloween Land, he knew every nook and cranny of it, and these other images were just the result of some poorly digested mushrooms. 

   But they wouldn’t leave him be.  He could _feel_ that girl’s hand on his knee, the earnest twinkle in her dark eyes making his stomach flip over.  They’d been looking at a boy, and Draco’s heart actually contracted in his chest as he recalled his messy black hair, the reflection of the candlelight on his glasses…

   Now who was _he?_

   “I don’t know,” he whispered, not wanted to confess out loud.  “I don’t know what’s real.  Why do I have other memories?  It’s like…they’re side by side?”

   The dog grinned toothily at him.  “That sounds about right,” he said.

   “How can it be right?” Draco snapped, fear making his temper short.  “It’s nonsense, that’s what it is.”

   The dog huffed.  “No need to get testy, Your Highness.  Ain’t my fault you fell through a portal.”

   “I did no such thing,” Draco retorted, even as the same image of the pumpkin on the tree came to mind. 

   “Suit yourself, grumpy pants,” the dog said with a roll of his eyes, scratching himself again.  His fabric wings were strange; Draco didn’t understand why he was wearing a costume, like someone from the Living Land might? 

   “Why would you say these things?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

   The dog shrugged.  “It ain’t the first time I’ve seen this,” he said.  “It’s rare, but I’ve seen plenty like you before, and it takes a good bit a prompting for you to override what they’ve done to your head.”

   “They?” Draco asked, not liking the sound of that.  He thought of the mayor and his council, always meddling where they didn’t belong. 

   But the dog nodded.  “They, them, the usual ominous undertones a secretive governing body usually implies.  They dragged you down here and messed with your mind.  If I hadn’t of said anything, you would never have known.”

   “So…” Draco began, trying to unravel what was going on.  “You think I’m not really the prince?” 

   The dog squinted at him.  “No clue what you might be up there,” he said with a flick of his eyes to the cloudy sky.  “But down here, nah.  Sorry mate, there weren’t no prince here yesterday, but now everyone thinks there was.  It’s just the way it works.  They shift everyone’s reality, so they don’t remember it being any different.”

   Draco rubbed his forehead.  “I don’t understand,” he said, his insides writhing like snakes.  _What was going on?_

   The dog sighed.  “Alright, here’s bones of it, you ready?”  Draco wasn’t sure he was, but he was tired of talking in circles, so he nodded.  “You were living up there – in the Land of the Living,” he started explain.  “The veils between worlds are week on the days of their holidays, but to actually fall through…”  He shook his head.  “I’m guessing you’re one of those wizard types, using magic and all that, that always exacerbates things.” 

   Magic – now that _did_ spark something in Draco’s mind.  “Magic – I have a magic wand,” he cried, his hands automatically flying to his trouser pockets, but of course there was nothing there.  “Or I did?”

   “Still do, I imagine,” the dog said.  “Just not with you right now.  You starting to get it?” he asked hopefully, his tail giving a tentative flick back and forth. 

   Draco looked at his hands, at the black nail varnish that this morning had seemed essential and now felt totally out of place.  What was happening, why was he struggling to remember who he was?  He was a Prince…wasn’t he? 

   “What’s going on?” he rasped.

   The dog licked his nose.  “It’s alright mate, take your time.  But,” he added with a tilt of his head.  “Not too much time.  We’re on a clock here.”

   “Is this...” Draco began, starting to pace widthways across the cobbled street between the crooked terraced houses.  “Is this even real?” 

   “Oh it’s definitely real, I’m afraid,” the dog scoffed.  “It’s just not where you come from, not who you think you are.”

   “My name is Draco,” he announced with sudden defiance.  “Darkling Prince of the Land of Halloween.”  But…was that all?  Why had he awoken with such a startling sense of unease, of misplacement? 

   What were those peculiar images he had floating around his head?  The more he focused on that grand hall with the feast, the clearer it became.  He could see so much green and silver, and he thought again to that idea he’d had about the wand. 

   “My name is Draco… _Malfoy,”_ he said with sudden clarity.  He covered his mouth with his hand.  He rolled the word around in his mind.  _Malfoy._ Yes, that was right.  But how could it be?  “What’s happening?” he whispered.  He was a prince, but he was equally sure he was a wizard too, a student no less. 

   It was all coming crashing down now. 

   He went to a school called Hogwarts, he was the son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, and despite what his memory was trying to tell him, he had never set foot in this Halloween place until that day.  “I’ve been bloody _kidnapped_ and _brainwashed!”_

   The dog rose to all fours.  “Bingo, there we go,” he said impatiently and scrubbed at the stone floor with his clawed feet.  “Remember who you really are now?” 

   “Yes,” he snapped.  He wasn’t sure why he had thought he was a prince, but it seemed he did.  But those memories were now paling in comparison to the life he’d been living before, the people he’d known.  Sure, it had been Halloween the day before, he had been at the feast at Hogwarts; but it was a celebration, it wasn’t a _place._   “The question is what the hell am I doing here?”

   The dog – the _talking_ dog, Draco abruptly realised in light of reclaiming his full memory back – raised his eyebrows, or the closest doggy equivalent.  “Magic portal,” he said dryly.  “Pumpkin door, you said you remembered that much?”

   “Yes, yes,” Draco griped.  “I was in the Forbidden Forest.  And – oh.”  He felt his face drop and his stomach bottom out.  “I wasn’t alone.”  As the false memories faded, Draco could now see quite clearly what had happened to him yesterday, and his stomach rinsed cold with a mild amount of horror.  “I was at my school,” he began recalling out loud to his new unlikely friend.  “My magic school,” he amended, remembering what the dog had said about that being important.  “We have a feast every year at Halloween.”

   “I thought you guys went trick or treating?” the dog questioned, but Draco waved him off. 

   “That’s more of an American thing, and we’re in the middle-of-nowhere Scotland anyway.  That’s not really the point now, though.” 

   “Then what is?” the dog asked with a raised eyebrow.

   “Harry.” 

   Harry was always the point, wasn’t he?

   It had been different since they had returned to school.  Draco had been determined to turn over a new leaf and start again, without anyone telling him who he was supposed to be, or more importantly, blackmailing him into _killing_ anyone.  What he had not expected though, was for Harry to do the same, to drop their old rivalry for the silly, childish thing it had been.  And in place of that animosity, something else had grown with alarming speed.  Something warm, something friendly.

   Draco had always known what his true feelings towards Harry were, even as a small child.  But now they were teetering on the edge of adulthood, there was no way he could deny the attraction that simmered under his skin, even if he had never dared to speak the words out loud. 

   He completely, hopelessly, fancied the pants off of Harry bloody Potter. 

   “What’s a Harry?” the dog asked.

   “Harry is my…friend.”  It was strange to say that out loud, but seeing at the dog was a stranger, and he was Merlin only knew how far away from home, Draco felt himself emboldened.  “And he was with me last night.”

   His stomach did a flip.  That wasn’t quite how it happened, but it sort of made it sound like they were _together_ together.  The truth was though, the opposite was precisely why Draco had stormed off into the Forbidden Forest in the first place. 

   It had emerged slowly, their new friendship.  The mere lack of animosity had been a good enough start, but then Harry had offered to pair with him in Potions when Blaise and Pansy had abandoned him by teaming up together.  However, Granger and Weasley had done the same to Harry, and afterwards Draco had suspected that maybe Pansy had left him on his own on purpose.  Not that he and Harry had spoken much during the next couple of hours, but then later that day they had shared a sofa in the combined Eight Year common room, and Harry had even smiled at him. 

   Seeing as the Eight Years had a great deal of independence compared to the regular students, there had been a dramatic increase in inter-house social activities.  There were big parties at the weekends and smaller gatherings during the week to play games or study together.  Trips to Hogsmeade were popular as were informal Quidditch games, and Draco had found that he and Harry were spending more time together than ever.

   Polite hellos had become actual conversations, and Draco’s heart had become a pathetic flutter of nerves whenever they said more than a few words to each other.  For whatever reason, Harry had decided to forgive him, at least enough not to treat up with open distain, and Draco couldn’t remember a time he had felt happier.

   And then Halloween had rolled around.

   Draco knew, he _knew,_ that when Harry had asked if he would be going to the feast it was just a general enquiry.  But he couldn’t seem to stop himself from hoping that that meant that he _wanted_ him to be there…so they could spend some time together.  _Together_ together. 

   But then he’d gone and sat at the other end of the bloody table, and spent the whole time talking with people that weren’t him.  And then he had gone over to Ginny Weasley.

   Oh, everyone knew they were just friends now, that the romance has fizzled out and that Weasley even had her eye on a certain doe-eyed Ravenclaw now if rumours were to be believed.  But the fact that Harry would rather talk to her over Draco had made something in him snap, and he had stomped off before anyone could dissuade him otherwise, not thinking about where he was going, just that he’d needed to get Harry’s smiles to other people out of his sight. 

   He’d never meant to end up in the forest, but he’d been so distracted by Harry following him, he’d not really been paying much attention.  He was determined to stay angry, even though Harry didn’t really deserve it.  He’d obviously not tried to piss Draco off on purpose, but Draco hadn’t wanted to admit why he’d left the party, despite Harry’s persistent questioning. 

   “What did you say the portal looked like?” he asked, his memories become hazy towards the end. 

   The dog considered him, his hazel eyes scrunched in concentration.  “Never seen one myself,” he said.  “But I heard enough stories.  You see, there’s not just one portal – they go to all the holiday lands.”

   Draco raised his eyebrows in alarm.  “There’s not just Halloween Land?” he enquired. 

   The dog shook his head.  “So, if what I’ve heard is right, there would have been a ring of trees, each with a different door.  One would have been a pumpkin, the one that would have brought you here.”

   Draco nodded.  He and Harry had stopped walking he remembered, and Draco had become increasingly embarrassed at his earlier overreacting, not helped by the fact that Harry had kept trying to guess what was wrong.  Knowing that he’d cared, that he’d come after him at all, made Draco feel warm and toasty in the here and now, despite all the other things that had obviously gone wrong afterwards. 

   As they had stopped, and Draco had valiantly attempted to rustle up some courage and maybe do something drastic like _tell_ Harry how he’d felt, Harry had lit his wand.  Which meant now he could recall what had been painted on the trees, at least, to a certain extent.   

   “I don’t remember the pumpkin,” he admitted.  “I was pulled backwards once everything started going crazy.  But there definitely were other symbols – other doors.  And Harry…” He chewed his lip and brought up his last memory, before everything had gotten dark.  “Harry went through another one, he didn’t come with me.”

   He felt himself deflate in disappointment.  But the dog didn’t seem deterred.  “Alright then,” he said with gusto.  “Not to worry, Sunshine.  First thing’s first: which door _did_ he go through then?” 

 


	2. II

 

   The sound of Hermione’s heels hitting the stone floor echoed off the walls and filled the whole corridor.  No one but she and Ron were up at such a small hour of the morning it seemed, but they had no reason to fear reprimand. 

   They had been summoned.

   “What on Earth do you think happened?” Ron hissed anxiously as he drew his dressing gown tighter around his body, his slippers thwacking on the floor.  Hermione had elected to at least throw some clothes on when McGonagall’s patronus had come to fetch them, but Ron had been in such a flurry he’d done well to pull his own dressing gown on and not Hermione’s. 

   She shook her head.  “You heard the same message I did.”  Which was that Harry, after going missing from the feast, had been found unconscious, deep in the Forbidden Forest, sometime in the last hour. 

   “What the hell was he doing out there?” Ron wondered angrily out loud. 

   As they approached the hospital wing, Hermione jutted her chin.  “I think we’re about to find out.”  At least, she hoped.

   They pushed through the doors, then pulled up short.  It appeared they weren’t the only ones that had been called from their dorms.  Pansy Parkinson was sat rigidly by one of the beds, holding its occupant’s hand between her own as if it were made of paper.  She looked up from the sleeping form of Malfoy, and took them in with her dark, almond eyes. 

   Hermione hated herself for not being able to stop the attempt to flatten her wild curls.  But even in the dead of night, Pansy had still managed to find time for lip gloss and blush, her jet black hair was styled in a perfect bob, her blouse was without a single crease, and yet she had _still_ beaten her and Ron to the hospital wing.  Hermione hadn’t even bothered to brush her teeth. 

   Her face was pinched.  “About time,” she drawled dispassionately, indicating Harry’s unconscious form in the adjacent bed with a slender hand.  “They’re still alive at least.” 

   Hermione could feel Ron beside her looking between Harry and Malfoy with his whole head.  “What the- Why-” 

   “They were found together?” Hermione supplied, addressing Pansy directly.  She sat the other side of Harry, so she and Ron could face the Slytherin with the two sleeping boys between them.  She mirrored Pansy, and took Harry’s cold hand in her own.  “What happened?”

   Pansy glanced off towards Madam Pomfrey’s office, but it seemed she hadn’t heard them come in and wasn’t going to venture out any time soon.  “I saw Potter follow after Draco, and thought I’d give them some time alone.”

   “What on Earth for?” Ron interjected. 

   Pansy tutted and rolled her eyes.  “However, when it went past midnight and he’d still not returned, I did a locator spell.  Imagine how impressed I was to be dragged not only out of the school, but into the bloody forest.”  She paused to stroke back a lick of blond hair and swallow.  “I was rather looking forward to giving a nice long lecture on the effect frostbite can have on one’s extremities,  but then I find them both lying on the ground in the middle of a glade.”  She shifted uncomfortably.  “They won’t wake up.” 

   “They’re not just sleeping?” Hermione asked, taking Ron’s hand in her left one, keeping Harry’s firmly in the grasp of her other. 

   Pansy shook her head sadly, looking down at Malfoy.  “Pomfrey says it’s like they’re in a coma.  They’re still alive, but their minds…” She bit her lip and rolled her shoulders back.  “She says their minds are quite active.”

   “What does that mean?” Hermione asked, not sure she was grasping the gravity of the situation.  “Doesn’t that just indicate they’re dreaming?”

   Pansy shook her head.  “McGonagall should be explaining this,” she groused.  “I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

   It was a rare moment of humility that took Hermione by surprise.  It was nice that the returning Slytherins had mellowed considerably as much as she’d seen so far, but it still made her sit back and consider her response.  “Well, you know more than us,” she encouraged.

   Pansy tilted her head and seemed to accept the praise.  “Quite.  Well, they were reasonably deep into the forest, off the beaten track for sure.  They must have been lying there for quite some time.”  Her eyes became shiny as she rested the flat of her hand on Draco’s chest, slowly rising and falling under her touch.  “They were so cold I thought for a second they were dead.”

   Ron sucked in a breath of air.  “Shouldn’t they be in St Mungo’s?” he demanded in a hiss, as if he was worried about waking Harry up. 

   But Pansy shook her head.  “McGonagall didn’t want to move them too far.  It was risky enough getting them back to the castle, but it didn’t seem right leaving them out in the cold.”

   “Damn right,” Ron said with a sniff, then seemed to realise he’d just agreed with a Slytherin.  Before he could correct himself, Hermione addressed Pansy. 

   “So, were they attacked?” she asked, her blood running cold.  There had been a number of Death Eaters rounded up in the wake of Voldemort’s defeat, but the idea that one of them could have gained access to the school grounds turned her stomach. 

   Pansy pulled a sticky, pink lip between her teeth.  “McGonagall wasn’t sure.  There were residual trace elements of magic, but it wasn’t anything she recognised, and she was more concerned about getting them to safety than taking a good look around.”

   “That bloody forest,” Ron growled.  “When are they going to regulate it properly – it’s dangerous!”

   Pansy stared at him.  “Eight years, and you’ve only just figured this out?”

   Hermione yanked him down as he tried to shoot to his feet.  She’d learned enough about the Slytherin girl to know when she was winding someone up.  “So what makes Pomfrey think they aren’t just dreaming?”

   Pansy, who had ignored Ron’s outburst entirely, patted Draco’s chest then sat back, his hand once more cupped between her two.  “She and McGonagall performed a few tests before we brought them back here.  They said the brain activity was like they were fully awake and stimulated.  It could be they don’t know they’re asleep.”

   That troubled Hermione.  Harry’s mind was a dark and dangerous place at times, and if he was trapped in there, there was no telling what awful scenarios he might be conjuring. 

 


	3. III

 

   The cuckoo clock on the bedside cabinet began to rattle as the gears and levers sprung to life, announcing the impending chime of the hour.  But Harry was already awake, and he rolled over heavily to watch as the small bird burst forth from behind his little door, chirping eight times as the tiny bell rang in time over his head.  “Morning Harry,” he said once he was done, hopping on his perch. 

   Harry rubbed his eyes and sighed.  He’d been half awake for quite some time, dozing in and out of a fitful night’s sleep.  “Morning,” he mumbled, managing a partial smile.  It wasn’t the cuckoo’s fault after all that he was in a bad mood. 

   The bird though seemed to guess Harry wasn’t feeling like having a chat, and with a nod and a flutter of his wings, his perch retracted into the clock where he would wait for another hour.  Harry had once asked him what he did in between announcing the time, and had been subjected to a full hour of looking through miniature scrap books of different types of bird seeds.  He’d never asked again. 

   Right then, all he wanted to do was snuggle back down under his thick, comfy duvet, all warm and toasty, but his mind was so fractious after sleeping so poorly he knew he’d just lie there getting grumpier if he didn’t do something.  So he sighed, flung the covers back and stretched with a big yawn.  His feet found his big squishy slippers, shaped like Christmas puddings, and he slid out of his bed to open the fluffy red curtains.  Bright sunshine spilled inside his small bedroom, and he looked out over the snowy landscape, feeling a bit more like himself again.

   He had a beautiful view from every window in his cottage, either of the forest on one side, or the mountains on the other.  It was mostly just him at the moment there to appreciate it, but he hoped that would change before too long.  He’d love to share his home with someone else.

   As he stood at the window though, that thought made him frown again.  Had he been dreaming of a ‘someone else’?  If so, why hadn’t that left him feeling happy?  He shrugged, and plodded across the room, opening the door to head into the open kitchen and living area in his mince-pie patterned pyjamas.

   Several mice were busy on the counter top, scurrying about with eggs and milk and shakers of cinnamon.  One was tending a frying pan on the hob, whilst another was juggling metal cutters shaped like holy and snowflakes.  Harry stopped short in surprise.

   _“Guys,”_ he said fondly.  “You didn’t have to make me breakfast!”

   They all froze and looked up, then all started squeaking at once.

   “You were snuffling!”

   “And shouting!”

   “And having bad dreams!”

   “We wanted to help, but didn’t know how!”

   “Food helps though!”

   “Oh yes, food helps!”

   “Are you hungry?”

   “We made pancakes!”

   _“Sooo_ many pancakes!”

   Harry had to laugh as he noticed the big wooden table, which was heaving with several stacks of pancakes, like his housemates had said, but also bowls of chocolate sauce, marshmallows, hundreds and thousands, and all kinds of brightly coloured sweets.  The smell of honey and nutmeg filled the house alongside the fresh batter that was being poured into the hot pan; several of the mice working together so they didn’t spill a drop.

   One of the older mice crept up, wringing her hands in concern.  “Elves do like pancakes, don’t they?” she asked worriedly. 

   Harry’s face broke into a huge grin.  “Absolutely, of course they do!  Thank you.”  He smiled warmly at his friends.  “And I know for a fact mice like cheese.”  He crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge, pulling out a special block of aged gouda he’d been saving, and unwrapping it for all the mice to smell.

   “Oh _heavenly!”_ the older mouse chirped amongst several cries and squeals of delight, before one little mouse actually swooned and Harry had to catch her before she tumbled off the counter. 

   They all sat down at the table together and had a hearty breakfast.  Harry must have eaten ten pancakes, all with different toppings, and he had to stop himself before he ate any more.  He wouldn’t want to be too full for elevenses after all!

   The mice promised to do all the washing and tidying up, it was in their nature after all, but Harry still felt a twinge of guilt as he was shooed off into the bathroom.  He had to admit though, he very much enjoyed his cranberry scented bubble bath, and by the time he was putting on his uniform he was in a slightly better mood than when he had been roused by his cuckoo clock. 

   He was still troubled though as he pulled on his snow boots and gloves, thinking of why he had slept so badly.  He was sure he had had a nightmare, but what it had been about, or why it had left him feeling so uneasy, he really couldn’t say. 

   Strings of multi-coloured lights lined his walk into town and reflected off the fresh snow.  Harry almost felt bad as he walked along, leaving deep footprint blemishes in his wake.  The sun was shining brightly and the comforting scent of baking cookies wafted through the air, but Harry was still glum as he made his way to work. 

   Normally this was the best time of year; the autumn and winter months that ran up to Christmas were always filled with the buzzing excitement that carried them to December twenty fifth, when Father Christmas made his epic journey across the globe, bringing joy to all the land. 

   Harry didn’t want to let his funny mood influence his day, so he gave his whole body a good shake then began to hum a carol.  On a normal day, he would typically be the first to work, eager to see his many friends, but today thanks to his lolly-gagging he was precariously close to being late. 

   “Harry!”

   He turned to find Bobby and Joe scampering up behind him along the woodland path, kicking up clouds of light, powdery snow.  They all wore matching green tunics that marked them as having the most prestigious job in all of Christmas Land; toy makers at Santa’s workshop.  As usual, Bobby’s belt buckle was polished, his buttons neat and his hair combed neatly under his hat.  Joe on the other hand had miss-matching shoes, his gloves were inside out, his name badge was upside down…and he couldn’t have looked happier if he’d tried.  He was the one that had called to Harry, and waved enthusiastically at him right until he was close enough to give him a crushing hug hello. 

   “Isn’t it a wonderful day!” he exclaimed.  

   “Absolutely,” Harry agreed as he let him go again, but something in his voice must have given him away, because both Bobby and Joe frowned at him. 

   “What’s wrong?” Bobby asked, putting his hand to Harry’s forehead.  “You don’t have tummy ache do you?”

   Harry shook his head, dislodging his hand.  “No, I’m fine,” he insisted. 

   Joe gasped.  “Did you burn your breakfast?  Do we need to run to the bakery?”

   Harry chuckled and continued walking again, his friends beside him.  “Guys, I’m fine, really,” he said.  “I didn’t sleep well.  I think I had a bad dream.”  Joe and Bobby stopped in their tracks, matching looks of horror on their faces.  “What?” Harry asked, an uneasy feeling in his stomach. 

    “A… _bad_ dream?” Joe repeated.

   “Not a sweet one?” Bobby asked. 

   Harry stopped walking as well and frowned at them.  “It’s no big deal,” he said with a shrug.  “It just happens.”

   But they shook their heads.  “No, it doesn’t,” Bobby said, troubled. 

   “Maybe over in Halloween Land,” Joe added with a scoff and a shudder.  “But no one ever gets bad dreams here.”  Harry, blinked, taken aback.  He didn’t know that.  How come he didn’t know that and his friends did? 

   “What was it about Harry?” Bobby asked, stepping closer to him and touching his elbow in a comforting manner. 

   Harry felt uneasy with his friends’ attention so fixed on him, but he supposed it would be a good idea to talk about it.  “Um, I don’t know.  I think I was lost?”

   “Oh no!”

   “Harry, I’m so sorry,” Joe said, and gave him another hug.  “Weren’t you with your friends, or your family?”

   Harry frowned, trying to remember.  “I think I was looking for someone?”  He kicked his boot through the snow, creating a little gully.  They were still on the outskirts of town, their path surrounded by pine trees.  Several squirrels and owls had gathered in the branches, listening in on their conversation. 

   “Who were you looking for?” Bobby asked gently.  He steered him so they could sit down on a log that was mostly protected by the trees and only had a little snow on it.  “Bad dreams are very rare Harry, it must mean something important if you had one.”

   “Really?”  Bobby nodded solemnly, and Harry felt silly again for not knowing that.  “Well…”  Harry scrunched up his face as he concentrated.  “I think it was a special friend.”

   “Like a girlfriend?” Bobby asked.

   “Or a boyfriend!” Joe added with a dreamy twirl.  “Harry, you never said you had anyone special!” 

   Harry pulled his glasses off and rubbed them on his green tunic for something to distract himself.  “Exactly, they can’t be real if you two don’t know about them?  I think maybe I just imagined them,” he added miserably, putting the glasses back on.  The truth was, now he was picturing his dream-beau, he very much wanted them to be real.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that they needed saving, but that was probably just the nightmare playing tricks with his mind.

   “Tell us about them,” Joe pressed.

   “Do we know them?” Bobby asked sensibly.

   Harry wasn’t sure how to answer that – how could he, when he wasn’t even sure if _he_ knew them.  “Um,” he began, twiddling his thumbs between his knees.  “He’s got blond hair.”

   “He’s a he!”

   “And he’s a blond!”

   The boys high-fived, and the animals drew in closer, flocking down from the trees so as to hear Harry better.  He felt a bit shy, but also encouraged by the crowd, so he dug a little deeper, thinking of the boy he’d dreamed of in a clearing in an enchanted forest.  

   “Well,” he said, as the music swelled, and he threw open his arms and burst into song.

 

   _“He’s as tall as a Christmas tree, and pale as the moon,_

_It’s enough to make any boy or girl swoon!”_

_“Oh Harry you tease, you must tell us more!”_ the chorus of elves and animals chimed in.

   _“Of course,”_ Harry assured them. _“Isn’t that what friends are for?_

_“His eyes are as silver as a fresh polished bell,_

_So bright they’ll make the coldest heart swell._

_He’s clever and crafty and always knows best,_

_Ask anyone around, he’ll pass any test!”_

   Harry stood and spun in a twirl, a number of red-breasted robins flying down to circle around him.  Joe and Bobby leapt up as well, linking arms and dancing a jig. 

 

   _“Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?_

_He and I were just made to be!_

_Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?_

_He and I were just made to be!”_

 

   The chorus came back in, lifting Harry off his feet and dancing the party along the road and into town. 

_“But where is he now, where has he gone?_

_We’re hoping for you that he won’t take too long._

_Is he at home, perhaps still in bed?_

_Tell us and we can wake that sleepy head!”_

_“I don’t know where he’s gone,”_ Harry sang, his voice growing sombre.  _“Or where he could be._

_I just know that I miss him most terribly._

_I miss his smile, so crooked and sad,_

_I miss the way he always tries to be bad._

 

   _“Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?_

_He and I were just made to be._

_Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?_

_He and I were just made to be.”_

 

   As they entered the main street, people came out from their cottages; elves and reindeer and gingerbread families, all dancing in the morning sunshine as Harry was lifted above their heads, held safely by dozens of hands as they made their way towards the factory workshop.

 

   _“Is he here in Christmas land, the home of St Nick?_

_Will calling his name aloud perhaps do the trick?_

_Or maybe Cupid’s domain is where he resides,_

_The land of the lovers, where no distance divides!_

   A dark skinned boy and his snowman friend bounded forward, and the boy threw a fiddle onto his shoulder. 

_“I think it’s a dragon he’s gone to befriend,_

_We should question St George unto that end.”_

The snowman though shook his head. 

_“I think he’s hiding in the land of light,_

_Where eight candles are waiting, one for each night.”_

   The rest of town joined in once more.

 

   _“Oh can’t he see, oh can’t he see?_

_He and Harry were just made to be!_

_Oh can’t he see, oh can’t he see?_

_He and Harry were just made to be!”_

The music quieted and slowed, and Harry let himself be placed back on the snowy ground.  He looked up at the grand entrance to the workshop, a sight that usually gave him hope, but now all he felt was emptiness. 

_“If he’s vanished for good, in a land far away,_

_What else is there really left here to say?_

_On an Easter egg hunt, or with fireworks set,_

_Or in the land of the poppies, where they never forget._

_“He’s not here now, that much I know,_

_He’s lost in the dark, doesn’t know where to go._

_My beautiful love, come back to my heart,_

_And I swear on Kris Kringle we never shall part._

_“Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?_

_You and I were just made to be._

_Oh can’t you see, oh can’t you see?_

_You and I were just made to be.”_

   The music paused into silence, then roused suddenly, making Harry’s heart jolt in his chest.  The townsfolk picked him up again, and bounced him on their shoulders.

 

   _“Now don’t talk like that,_ _we won’t just give in!_

_It’s the start of the story, a chance to begin!”_

Joe and Bobby came to the front of the crowd, still arm in arm. 

 

_“If he is this special (and he is, we can tell)_

_There’s no land we won’t try, no charm we won’t spell!”_

   The whole town joined in once more, and Harry laughed despite his tears as he was carried over their heads. 

 

   _“Come on everybody, get your thinking caps on!_

_It couldn’t be far, the land he has gone._

_We’ll turn every shamrock, ask every ghost,_

_And soon we’ll find the boy that Harry loves most!_

_As he has to see, he HAS to see,_

_That he and Harry are just made to be!”_

 

   There was quiet for a moment, and then the whole town burst into cheering and clapping.  Harry couldn’t help but feel a little better as he slipped once more to the snow covered ground, and turned to hug several of his friends and fellow townsfolk. 

   “You really think we can find him?” he asked Joe and Bobby as the rest of the people drifted away. 

   Bobby clasped a hand to Harry’s shoulder, and nodded his head.  “Like I said, bad dreams happen for a reason.  If your special boy is out there, I know you can find him.”

   Joe clutched his hands to his chest.  “Oh Harry, you’re going on an adventure,” he crooned wistfully.  “A quest for true love!”

   “Nobody said anything about true love,” Harry mumbled, his cheeks glowing red.  But it didn’t sound so wrong to hear someone else say it out loud.  Did he really have a love out there?  If he did, he realised with some urgency, just how had he lost him? 

   It didn’t matter, he decided with a determined shake of the head.  He’d figure it out along the way.  His dream was telling him to go search for the blond boy with the silver eyes.  So good Noel, he was going to find him. 

   “Where should I start?” he asked.  He knew his friends were late for work now; the clock tower over the workshop told them so.  But Harry knew he wasn’t going to work at all, how could he!  So he hoped his friends would be forgiven a few minutes tardiness for his cause. 

   “Hmm,” said Joe, tapping his finger against his lip.  “Are you sure you don’t know his name?”

   Harry sighed, his breath coming out like a little puff from a steam train.  “Can’t think of anything at all,” he admitted.

   Bobby shook his head though.  “The whole town sang about him, and no one know who you were talking about.  He _must_ be in another land.”

   “How exotic,” Joe added with a bat of his eyelashes. 

   Harry dropped his hands to his side and tried not to lose hope.  “But there are _hundreds_ of lands!” he cried, panic rising in his chest.  “Where do I start?”

   One of the big barn owls from the woods swooped down and sat on the railings that led up to the workshop’s front door.  “You should talk to old Bones,” she towit-towoed in a reassuring manner.   

   “Oh yes!” a squirrel agreed hastily, running up the snowy path to their feet.  “Old Bones always knows what to do when people have having trouble remembering, you should go find him!”

   “Bones the dog?” Joe asked the animals with a frown.  “Doesn’t he live in St Valentine’s Land?”

   The squirrels tittered in a chorus.  “He got kicked out of there ages ago,” one of them offered up.  “I think he went to Diwali Land.”

   “No, no,” said another.  “I’m sure someone said he was trying his luck in Kiss A Ginger Land.”

   “Ooh, my favourite,” one of the squirrels said dreamily. 

   The owl shook her head.  “He always goes back to Halloween Land of all places, and if nightmares are the cause of your problem, you might want to head that way anyway.”

   Harry chewed his lip, a little apprehensive.  “Okay,” he said.  “If you think he can help?  But, how do I get there?”  He’d never left Christmas Land before, and he had no idea how he might go about it. 

   “My mum did it once,” Joe said, scratching his head.  “Went to another land.  She jumped down an ice hole.”

   Bobby shuddered in horror.  “That doesn’t sound pleasant!”

   “It wasn’t,” Joe said with a frown. 

   The owl tutted.  “The best way by far is going down the chimney in the town hall,” she said sagely.  “But of course, you can’t just go straight to one of the other major holiday lands, you have to go down to go up.”

   “What does that mean?” Harry said, hope bubbling in his chest.  If he could find this ‘Bones’ character, maybe he could help him find his lost love.  Surely that was worth any risk? 

   The owl spread her wings, and took to the air.  “Well why don’t you come with me” she said warmly.  “And I’ll show you?”


	4. IV

 

   “Oi, Your Highness,” the dog barked.  He’d apparently been trying to get Draco’s attention whilst he’d been lost in thought.  “What door did your little friend go through?”

   “Um,” said Draco, frowning in concentration.  It hadn’t been clear at all until Harry had started waving his wand about.  The dog had said magic exacerbated the portals between veils, but the fact that he’d cast a _Lux_ charm had helped too. 

   “There were several doors,” he began.

   “Yeah,” said the dog patiently.  “But which one _opened?”_

   Draco scowled at him.  “Okay, there was a heart – I guess that would be for Valentine’s Day?”

   “No?” drawled the dog.  “You think?” 

   Draco huffed and let the remark slide.  He wondered briefly what Valentine’s Land might look like, but when he immediately pictured a sickly sweet place, all pink and full of cherubs and everything made of chocolate, he decided he was probably thankful to have been sent to Halloween Land. 

   “Alright, I think there was an Easter Egg too, and a bonfire for Guy Fawkes.  Oh!”  Of course, it was the most obvious holiday of them all.  “I think Harry was standing by a Christmas tree.” 

   “Ah,” the dog said happily.  “Well, then, I guess he’d be in Christmas Land.”

   “But _why?”_ Draco asked, not nearly as comforted as the dog seemed to think he would be.  “Why have we been taken to these places, given new memories, forgetting who we are?  And for that matter, _why_ is there a Halloween Land, and a Christmas Land?”

   The dog scoffed.  He seemed very good at that for a dog.  “Where do you think holidays come from?” he said, but the question was clearly rhetorical, and he ploughed right on.  “Look, round here, things are sort of timeless.  People don’t age, they just… _be._ And they don’t, you know, have babies or anything.  So they repopulate in different kinds of ways – snatching people through the portals is one of the more sinister ways, but when people don’t know, and forget, no one’s around to protest it.”

   “Except you?” Draco said, raising a dubious eyebrow.

   “Yup,” the dog replied, full of himself as he wiggled his bum.  “I see through all that, I’m special me.”

   “How?”

   “No idea.  Just am.  How are you a wizard?”

   Draco nodded at the logic.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “Just am.”  He huffed out a breath and ran his fingers through his hair.  “But don’t people get angry when they do remember?” he asked.  Out of all the beings that could have had an inkling as to what was going on, it seemed extremely odd that it happened to be a talking French Bulldog.  But seeing as he _did_ seem to have some answers, Draco decided he wasn’t going to get snobbish about it.  “Why aren’t there riots, demanding they get sent back?”

   The dog yawned, showing off his crooked teeth.  “Because they don’t know.  It’s long time since I spotted a newcomer, and I can’t be in more than one place at a time, it’s a big old world.  Unless someone tells them, after their first day they just forget all together, like their other life never happened.” 

   Draco’s blood ran cold.  “That’s not much better than murder,” he growled.  The dog shrugged. 

  “Couldn’t agree more my friend, but right now, we’re probably the only ones who know about it.  This lot,” he jerked his head back towards the witch’s house, where his pee was still a dark little stream on the pathway.  “Are blissfully ignorant.  But it’s not too late for you.” 

   “Or Harry?” Draco quickly added.  “My friend, in Christmas Land?”  He knew he should probably be more indignant about everyone else; Harry would have been, he was sure of it.  But if there was really nothing that could be done, he wasn’t going to waste any tears over changing something he had no power over.  He would focus on him and Harry bloody Potter.  As usual.  “How long have we got – you said a day, right?”

   “Midnight,” the dog said decisively.  “After that, your memories will be gone forever, and you’ll be stuck here with the rest of us.”

   Draco paused, his excitement at escaping momentarily dimming.  “You’re stuck here too, aren’t you?”  He really shouldn’t care, it was just a dog after all.  But this particular dog was being pretty generous to him, and that wasn’t something that had happened much to him over the past year or two. 

  The dog shrugged nonchalantly.  “I rather like it here, truth be told.  But I appreciate it ain’t for everyone.  Now, how about we get you back home, before it’s too late?”

   Draco regarded him for a moment, then shook himself.  The dog said he was fine, then fine.  “Okay, how do we get home?”

   The dog shook his head.  “First, we gotta rescue your mate don’t we?  Follow me.”

   “Um, thank you…” Draco said uncertainly as her strode alongside the dog.

   “Call me Bones,” he replied with a wag of his tail.  “And don’t mention it.”

   Draco pulled at the frilly cravat around his neck, undoing it and discarding it to the ground.  Next went the tailcoat and top hat.  It wasn’t cold enough to absolutely necessitate keeping them on, and he felt ridiculous dressed up to the nines.  “Okay Bones,” he said, smoothing down his waistcoat and shirt.  It wasn’t all that dissimilar to the kind of thing he would normally wear.  “Now, not that I’m not grateful, but why _are_ you helping me?  What’s in it for you?”

   “It’s the right thing to do,” Bones said a little too quickly, and not fooling Draco one bit, a fact he illustrated with a withering look pointed down at his new companion.  “Oh aright,” Bones said with a grin, a rather sinister gesture on a dog thanks to the pointed canine teeth it displayed.  “You know the town is run by the Mayor?” he asked.   Draco did; his basic overall Halloween memories were helpfully still intact.  “Well let’s just say he encourages the kidnapping of innocent living fellows, and by sending you home, I’d annoy him significantly.” 

   “And, you want to annoy him?” Draco asked, unsure.

   “Oh,” Bones replied mischievously.  “Yeah.” 

 


	5. V

 

   Hermione sensed there was probably a little bit of drool slipping down her wrist, but it wasn’t enough to wake her until the door to the medical wing burst open, sometime around daybreak.  She jerked fully awake, her chin snapping away from her palm as she instinctively wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

   “Wah-”

   “Ms Granger, Mr Weasley,” Headmistress McGonagall said as she blustered in, several Healers from St Mungo’s hurrying in her wake.  “I’m so glad you could be here with Ms Parkinson, this must be a difficult time for you all.” 

   “Professor,” Ron said as he jumped to his feet.  “Madam Pomfrey explained some of it, but-”

   “What’s going on?” Pansy asked, her voice clear and cool.  She still, somehow, hadn’t managed to dislodge a single hair out of place. 

   “That’s what we’re here to find out.  Now,” McGonagall said as the Healers, all dressed in matching Ministry robes, flocked around the two beds and shoed the students out of their seats.  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you three to leave, just for now, whilst we conduct a more thorough examination.”  

   “But Professor-” Hermione started to protest.

   “We can help,” Ron piped up at the same time.  “You can fix him, right?  Wake him up?”

   McGonagall made a sympathetic face, and opened her mouth to answer.  But Pansy beat her to the punch.

   “Fix _them,”_ she said pointedly.  “There are _two_ patients here.  And if you think you’re more qualified than a trained Healer, then be my guest Weasley, stay and get in the way.  I however, am going to do what’s best for my friend.”

   With that, she swooped out of the room, her boot heels tapping loudly on the marble floor. 

   Hermione felt a flush of shame creep up her neck.  “I guess,” she mumbled over to Ron.  “We should probably go.”

   Ron looked like he wanted to argue, but the truth was they really didn’t have much to offer at the moment.  Hermione slunk to her feet and grabbed his hand.  “You’ll let us know the minute anything changes?” she asked, hating feeling so helpless. 

   “Of course dear,” McGonagall assured them with compassion. 

   They pushed through the double doors, and Hermione was already thinking what section of the library they could perhaps retreat to to do some research of their own, when she and Ron were brought up short.

   Pansy stood before them, arms folded over her tightly fitted jumper.  Her skirt was far too short in Hermione’s opinion, and if she really wanted to stay warm in October, thigh high socks were probably not the best way to go about it. 

   “Are you two _quite_ finished?” she drawled, eyebrow raised.

   Hermione threw her shoulders back.  “Finished with what?” she snapped.

   Pansy rolled her eyes.  “Dithering around of course.  We have things to do.”

   “I sincerely doubt we have anything to be doing anywhere near you,” Ron challenged, putting himself between her and Hermione.  “So why don’t you just sod off?”

   Pansy shrugged her shoulders and examined her berry-purple nails.  “Of course,” she said lightly, turning on her polished heels.  “I just assumed you’d want to inspect the scene of the crime yourselves.  Silly me.”

   “Wait, what?” Hermione cried, her voice jumping loudly off the walls, making her flinch. 

   Pansy slowly rotated on the sport, a smirk lining her face, remarkably like a cat who’d found the cream.  “Oh,” she said softly.  “I take it we are interested?”

   “You want to go find where they got attacked?” Ron asked dubiously. 

   Once again, that earned them an eye roll.  “I don’t need to _find_ it, genius,” she said in a deploring tone.  “I _found_ them in the first place, remember?  And I thought you Gryffindors were all about taking action, getting things done yourself?”  She smiled, much like Hermione imagined a shark would.  “So, you…don’t want to have a good poke around?” 

   “Yes, yes we do,” Hermione said quickly, before Ron could rise to the bait. 

   Pansy batted her eyes innocently.  “Say please.”

   Ron hunched his shoulders and clenched his fists, but Hermione put her hand on his chest. “Please,” she said through a gritted jaw.  “Please Pansy take us to where you found them in the forest, and tell us everything you remember.”

   She gave a small curtsy.  “Well, if you’re going to ask so nicely, of course Granger, it would be my pleasure.  What’s say we get properly dressed…”  Her gaze drifted unkindly up and down her and Ron’s shabby attire.  “And meet outside the front of the school in half an hour?”

   “Twenty minutes,” Ron countered with a scowl, and stomped off. 

   Hermione frowned and took in the other girl warily.  “Um, thank you,” she said uncertainly. 

   “I’m doing this for Draco,” was the frosty response she got back.  “Because, as annoying as you lot are, you always seem to bring each other back in one piece.  This is a one-time deal.  We go and we see if there’s anything we can do to bring them back.  That’s all.  We’re not _bonding_ or anything else equally repulsive over this, understood?” 

   Hermione let out a “Pshh,” noise from between her teeth.  “Fine, whatever, so long as it helps Harry.”

   Pansy gave her a single nod, then marched past her.  “Oh, and Granger,” she said as she reached the corner of the hallway.  “You might want to do something with that hair.  Poor Draco’s probably had enough shocks for one night.”

   Before Hermione could do anything more than splutter, Pansy vanished from sight, her crowning smirk burned into the back of Hermione’s eyes. 


	6. VI

 

   Harry looked up at the winch dubiously, then back down at his friends who were holding open the door to the basket for him to step into.  “Come on,” said Bobby.  “It’s perfectly safe.”

   Just as Harry had been worrying that his friends were going to get into trouble for being late into work, one of the administration fairies had floated down to say that Father Christmas had heard of Harry’s dilemma, and given them all permission to take the day off.  “What’s more important than true love, after all?” the fairy had asked sagely.

   Harry had muttered again that no one had said anything about true love, and that this love of his might not even _exist._   But he hadn’t wanted his friends to get into trouble, and absolutely no one in Christmas Land turned down the opportunity of a snow day. 

   The owl had led the three elves through town, with a small procession of interested bystanders of all shapes and sizes flitting excitedly along with them.  Apparently, someone travelling to a different land was a big deal – after all, Harry couldn’t ever remember anyone else doing it.  He’d always felt Christmas Land was the best of all the holidays, so why bother to investigate the others?

   But now he was stood in front of a cherry picker with a wicker basket dangling from its extending arm, and Harry wasn’t so sure what he was getting into.  “Explain to me again how this works?”

   The wise old owl didn’t seem put out by his hesitance though, merely giving him a patient, beaky smile.  “You need to go down into the next level of holidays, so naturally, you need to start at the top of the chimney.”

   “Any chimney?”

   She shook her head.  “No, the town hall is special.”

   “It has the biggest Christmas tree,” said Joe proudly, and the gaggle of people around the basket nodded in agreement. 

   “Santa’s sleigh would take him up to the Land of the Living,” explained the owl.  “But you want to go down.  Going down to a lesser holiday is the only way to go through the barriers and get up to another major holiday.  Does that make sense?”

   Harry wasn’t sure it did.  “So, there are levels?” he asked, and was met by several nods again.  Why didn’t he know that?  He hadn’t known that nightmares were unheard of either.  He was feeling so out of step with everything today, it was unnerving. 

   “There are four levels,” the owl explained.  “But hopefully you’ll be able to find Bones in Halloween Land, and whilst there unravel the meaning of your nightmare.”

   Even just saying the word out loud made the others shiver, and it wasn’t thanks to the dusting of snow gently falling from the sky.  Harry was seriously worrying that there was something wrong with him to have had such a bad dream, but hopefully the people of Halloween Land would be able to help him.  He’d only heard bits and pieces about the other lands, and he had to say he was a little apprehensive.  Out of all the places he needed to go, why did it have to be that one?

   “Will they be willing to help me when I get to Halloween Land?” he asked nervously, but the old owl gave a kind coo. 

   “They look far more fierce than they are,” she assured him, but there were several grumbles from the crowd to maybe suggest otherwise.  Harry swallowed nervously. 

   “Where will I go first?”  There were a lot of lesser holidays, that much he did know, but he wasn’t sure how many were on the second tier.  How many possibilities would there be? 

   “The portal will know where to take you,” said the owl.  “And in any case, you can reach the major holiday lands from any of the second level ones, you just have to concentrate hard enough.” 

   “Here,” said Joe, drawing his attention as he thrust a bindle into his hands.  “I packed you lunch.”  Harry frowned, unsure when he’d had time to run off and do that, but he was distracted as soon as he peeked inside the knotted handkerchief on the end of the stick. 

   “Oh!” he said in delight.

   Joe looked bashful, his cheeks going pink.  “I packed all the essentials,” he said proudly.  “Lollypops, brandy snaps, mince pies-”

   “Sugar mice, mint humbugs, candy canes-” Bobby chimed in. 

   “Caramels, cookies, and a bottle of milk for when you get thirsty!”

   “And mulled wine to celebrate when you find your love,” Bobby finished with a beaming smile. 

   Joe leaned in so he could whisper.  “Bobby made me pack some tangerines, because they’re ‘good for you’.”  Harry smirked at the use of air quotes.  “But don’t worry, I put them right at the bottom.”

   The support of his friends was heart-warming, but Harry was still feeling so nervous.  “What if I don’t find him?” he asked, his voice small.  “There are so many lands out there, what if I can’t find the dog Bones, what if I get lost?”

   Joe bit his lip and looked at Bobby, who then turned and looked at the old owl perched on the edge of the basket.  However, their answer came from the sky.

   “Don’t worry,” a robin chirped that Harry recognised from when he’d been signing in the forest.  He spiralled down through the air to land on Harry’s shoulder.  “We’ve got a plan!”

   Within moments, several dozen more red breasted robins descended from the air, landing on shoulders and heads and fences and shop signs.  Harry stared opened mouthed, amazed by all the birds who were apparently willing to help him.  “Wow,” he said, turning on the spot to take them all in.  “Hello everyone!”

   _“Hello!”_ they chorused back. 

   “Do you want to hear our plan?” the lead robin asked, hopping in excitement on Harry’s shoulder.

   He nodded.  “Yes please.”

   “You can only go to one land at a time,” the robin started.  “But we can go to lots.  We thought we’d spread the word that you were looking for Bones.”

   “And a blond haired boy with silver eyes!” cried the robin next to the old owl on the wicker basket. 

   “And that way they might know to come to you!”

   Harry felt a lump in his throat.  “Thank you,” he said sincerely to the bird on his shoulder.

   He looked very pleased with himself.  “I’ll come with you, if you like?”  He leaned in closer, then whispered shyly into Harry’s ear.  “My name’s Rocky.”

   Harry gently stroked the top of Rocky’s head.  “That would be great,” he said genuinely.

   “We’ll stay here and keep watch on the entrances from the lesser holidays!” Joe announced, and Bobby nodded enthusiastically. 

   “That way, if anyone comes up, we’ll know about it!”

   Harry looked around at everyone that had gathered with him, and felt immensely grateful.  “Thank you, all of you,” he said, filled with festive cheer.  “I mean it.”

   The old owl tapped her claw onto the basket.  “Come on now Harry,” she said.  “It’s time you were on your way.  We can direct the robins through after you’ve gone.” 

   _“First battalion!”_ Rocky shouted, so loudly Harry jumped about three feet in the air.  For such a little bird, he certainly knew how to use his lungs.  _“With me!”_

   Several birds took flight, circling around the roof of the town hall, and Harry saw that as his cue.  “See you soon,” he said, hugging Bobby and Joe goodbye.

   “Good luck,” Bobby said.

   “We’ll miss you lots!” Joe promised, tears in his eyes.

   Harry chuckled. “I should be back soon,” he assured him.

   “Still,” Joe sniffled, wiping his eyes. 

   With that, Harry finally stepped into the wicker basket, shutting the door behind him.  The elf who was operating the cherry picker swung the levers into action, and Harry began to gently rise from the ground towards the roof of the town hall.  A cheer went up as he ascended, and he waved down at the crowd as they grew smaller the higher he went.  “Bye!” he cried jovially.  “See you soon!”

   He was still smiling as he reached the roof, but his nerves were trembling in his belly like it was filled with fairies.  Flutters of anxiety rolled over him as he stepped out of the basket.  He had never left Christmas town, he didn’t know what was going to face him once he ventured down the chimney.  It wasn’t that he was scared exactly of what he was about to encounter, more that he had no idea if he would be successful. 

   Who knew if his dream boy was even real, let alone what land he could be in?  All Harry did know was that there was an ache in his chest, a longing for a missing piece to his puzzle, and he had to do whatever it took to try and fix it. 

   The old owl had flown from her perch on the basket to the lip of the chimney.  It just looked like an ordinary size to Harry as he traversed the snow dusted terracotta tiles, and he wondered how on earth he was supposed to fit down it.  The first group of robins were zipping around above his head though, eager it seemed to follow him into another land, and Rocky on his shoulder gave him a soft but encouraging peck of his beak.  “This is going to be fun,” he said, ruffling his feathers in anticipation. 

   Harry nodded, hoping he looked more confident than he felt. 

   “Perhaps the robins should go first?” the owl suggested.  “So you can see how it works?”

   Harry smiled at her, but he could tell it didn’t quite reach his eyes.  “Lead the way,” he said to the birds.

   Rocky leaped from his shoulder to take to the air.  _“First Battalion!”_ he bellowed once again.  _“Prepare to descend!”_

   The robins fanned out into the air above, then came back in one line made up of the dozen or so birds.  With one final loop against the backdrop of the falling snow, they dove towards the square top of the chimney pot, showing no regard for the plume of smoke billowing slowly out of the entrance. 

   Harry couldn’t help but gasp as they plummeted down into the flue and out of sight, not one of them pausing as they did so.  Rocky however was bringing up the rear, and once he was satisfied that all the birds in front of him had gone through the portal, he swooped elegantly upwards to take another circle around the stack, then veered back around to land once more on Harry’s shoulder. 

   “All sorted,” he reported with a nod. 

   Harry blinked, glancing at the old owl.  “And they’ve all gone to another…world?”

   “Worlds, plural, I should imagine,” she said, as if throwing yourself down a hot chimney stack was all very normal.  “There’s only so much you can control where you go, but the portal would have known they wanted to venture far and wide, and helped them as such.  Now,” she said, standing up even straighter.  “I do believe it’s your turn.”

   Harry gulped.  “How will I fit down though?” he asked.

   Rocky prodded him with his clawed toe.  “How about you swing your legs over and find out?”

   There was a nervous hush from down below, even though the crowd couldn’t see what he was doing as he carefully made his way over.  The time for nerves was done he decided as he gingerly lifted one booted foot and lowered it through the fine smoke to sit on the edge of the chimney.  By the time he had his other leg dangling too, he fit just fine, but because of the wood smoke he couldn’t quite see how that was possible.  He thought the smoke would have made him cough, but it actually smelled rather nice, like toasted marshmallows, and merely tickled the back of his throat.

   “That wasn’t so hard,” he said, giving the owl a genuine smile.  But she raised a feathery eyebrow at him.

   “That was the easy part,” she said.

   Harry swallowed.  “Um,” he replied, glancing at Rocky.  “What’s the hard part then?”

   She used her wingtip to indicate the darkness of the chimney shoot.  “You have to trust, and let yourself drop.”

   Harry’s insides certainly dropped at that revelation, but he had wasted enough time.  “Okay,” he rasped, breathing in and out, in and out.  “Let’s do this.”

   And he dropped. 

 


	7. VII

 

   “So, let me get this straight,” said Draco as he followed Bones through the winding cobbled streets of Halloween Land.  “You can’t go directly between the main holidays, because of cross-contamination?”

   The dog shrugged.  “That’s one word for it I guess,” he said in his gruff accent.  “I call it ‘elitism’.  Nobody wants nobody else stealing their ideas or nothing.”

   Draco was no stranger to pride, and didn’t really see a problem with that.  What annoyed him was the inconvenience, especially with the clock ticking.  “So we have to go down to a lesser holiday land, then go back up again to Christmas Land?”  Bones nodded and Draco muttered some choice profanities under his breath.  “Knowing Harry he won’t stay put, if he works out something’s wrong, he’ll go exploring.”

   “Well then,” announced Bones.  “We’d better get a move on, wouldn’t you say Sunshine?”

   Draco sighed.  This was not how he had envisaged spending this day, not before when he’d been back at Hogwarts, nor this morning when he thought he was a prince.  “So is it like travelling to the Land of the Living?”  Even though he knew the memory was false, he was still aware of how the people of Halloween Land slipped through the shadows in the town’s graveyard to go up to the real world.

   “Sort of,” agreed Bones as they hurried past a street vendor selling cups of frogspawn to eager children.  “Except you can only travel up there on the day of your holiday.  You can travel to other lands any time you want, it’s just most people don’t tend to bother.”

   Draco came to a halt in front of a shop offering services to _Boost Your Boo!_ and _Get The Go In Your Ghoul!_  “Hang on,” he said.  “We can only travel back to the real world on the day of a holiday?” he asked in horror.  “But, it’s not Halloween anymore!”

   Bones blew a raspberry.  “You major holiday folks are so up yourselves,” he scorned.  _“Every_ day has a holiday, and once we find your mate, we’ll track down one that happens on November 1 st.”

   Draco wasn’t sure he was convinced, but Bones was right.  Finding Harry was the priority for now; they could work out the rest later.  “So which land _are_ we going to, and how do we get there?” 

   The path was taking them up the hill, past more businesses and several eateries that made Draco’s stomach roll now he had his proper memories back.  Everything was rotting or had bits of spiders in it, and he shuddered, very glad he had skipped breakfast.  “There’s several ways down,” Bones admitted.  “But the best is the darkest and scariest basement of them all.” 

   Draco hadn’t known until that moment how wickedly a French Bulldog could smirk.  “You don’t mean-” he spluttered, looking up the hill to the house that loomed on the top.  The only house as high as the royal palace on the opposite side of town.

   “Yup,” he replied saucily.  “The one and only.”

   The mayor’s house.

   Who else would have the scariest basement?  And if he wanted to stop people going to different lands, he would definitely want to be guarding the entrance.  “Isn’t there another one we can use?” Draco sighed.  “One to a different land?”

   “Don’t be such a wuss,” Bones grunted, sticking his nose up in the air.  “We haven’t got time, and this is the best way, so come on.”

   Draco grumbled up the rest of the climb, but he didn’t suggest turning back again. 

   The house was four stories high and even wider again, with a bell tower and a hanging gallows in the grounds.  An ornamental garden of dead and decaying flora gave them plenty of cover to sneak up to one of the back doors, and then Draco looked down to take Bones’ lead.  “What now?” 

   “Bloody hell, do I have to do everything around here?” Bones complained in mocking tones.  “Look, he doesn’t actually have much security.  He just relies on being the scariest thing in a town full of scary things to keep people away.  So I suggest you and your human shaped hands just try the door knob to start with.”

   Draco wasn’t sure that was the best plan ever, but he didn’t have another one, so he figured he would just give it a go. 

   He stepped carefully out from behind the large bush covered in black roses they had been crouching behind, but the shadows were so deep from the large house on the gloomy day, he was able to dart over without too much risk of being seen.  Bones followed just behind him, the fake bat wings bobbing on his back as he ran. 

   Without a word, Draco turned and tried the handle; it was locked, but he wasn’t giving up just yet.

   After so much time spent living under the threat of the Dark Lord in his own damn house, he had acquired a few non-magic tricks for the times when his wand would be confiscated from him, as if he were a small child.  And he had never been more thankful until that moment that one of those tricks was lock picking.  He just needed a couple of pins…

   “Hey, do those wings come off?” he asked.

   Bones stuck his lip out in a pout.  “If they must?”

   Draco made short work of undoing the harness to the doggy bat wings, then unpicked some of the stitching on the side.  Just as he had hoped, the wings were kept in shape with wire spines, one of which he was able to ease out without too much trouble.  Bones looked incomplete now without them rising from his back, but it was hardly the biggest problem they were facing right then, so Draco figured Bones would be okay with it.  He bent the wire, crouched down and started working with the two prongs in the keyhole. 

   “I feel naked,” Bones said morosely.

   “You look gorgeous,” Draco told him in a deadpan voice.

   Bones harrumphed, but he also preened a little, and Draco couldn’t help but give half a smile at that. 

   It took a bit longer than Draco would have hoped seeing as they were out in the open with nothing for cover but a lazy Venus fly trap that could only be bothered to snap in their direction occasionally, and even then it only took a tap on the nose to get it to flinch away again.  But eventually the lock clicked, and he was able to turn the handle and swing the door inside.  “Bingo,” he said, using a Muggle saying he’d picked up along the way despite his best efforts. 

   The door led into a corridor that was dark and draughty, but also thankfully empty.  There were no windows, but there were some small, rather ineffective torches on the wall providing a modicum of light, several doors that opened up on the left and right, as well as stairs at the end that headed downwards.  “Straight on?” Draco asked with a raised eyebrow.  Bones nodded silently. 

   They crept inside, and tried not to jump when the door slammed behind them.  Draco held his breath, waiting for someone to come investigate, but no one did, and he surmised that slams and bangs were probably common in a house like this. 

   Now they were indoors the temperature had plummeted, and Draco wished he hadn’t ditched his frilly morning coat earlier.  He shivered and rubbed his arms as they tiptoed forwards, eyes snapping anxiously back and forth between the doors. 

   Most of them were only ajar by an inch or two, and beyond that the rooms were dark.  But some were slightly more open, showing what looked to be stacked up storage boxes and not much else.  But then Draco smelt something sharp and tangy, like rust, and his stomach lurched as they slunk past a door which led into what had to be a kitchen.

   He couldn’t see much beyond the green smoke that wafted from various pots and pans, but the sounds of sizzling meat was clear enough, and Draco risked a closer look at what was poking out of the nearest bubbling saucepan. 

   It was a human arm.

   “Okay,” he whispered so quietly it was barely a sound at all, but with extreme alarm nonetheless.  “Let’s go.  Now, now, _now!”_

   Bones’ nails scratched too loudly on the stone floor for Draco’s liking as they raced the last few steps to the stairs, but he would take speed over stealth if it meant getting away from that gruesome sight. 

   Halloween Land had seemed quite quaint until that point.  Now Draco was ready to get the hell out of there and never, ever look back. 

   They dashed down the stairs towards what he hoped was the basement, but it took them a twisty-turny rout, their footfalls echoing disturbingly off the walls.  They were down in a dank corridor with firmly locked doors either side, metal bars in the doors’ small windows suggesting this was some sort of prison.  Voices on the other sides wailed and moaned at Draco and Bones’ arrival, shuffling near the doors and flinging their bloody and filthy hands out in an attempt to grab at him. 

   “It’s not real, it’s not real!” he hissed to himself as they sprinted past. 

   “I told you!” Bones cried from down at his heels.  “It’s very real, which is why we need to keep running!”

   Draco didn’t need telling twice as the metal bars rattled and several things creaked and screeched horribly.  He really hoped it wasn’t the doors grinding open, but he was too scared to look over his shoulder and find out. 

   It was so dark he could hardly see now, but there was enough light from the feebly flickering torches that as they turned the corner at a t-junction he could clearly see the figure blocking their path.  “Leaving so soon, Your Highness?” the man drawled in a simpering tone. 

   He was almost seven foot tall and deathly thin, with bulging eyes and a slender moustache on his top lip that could have been drawn on with a single flick of a quill.  His suit was black and pinstriped, but it was hard to see below the billowing white apron that covered most of his body.

   Well, in the split second Draco registered it, he assumed it had started as white.  It was now mostly dripping with thick, red blood. 

   His hands were covered with fat rubber gloves, and as Draco and Bones skidded almost comically to a halt before him, he raised his left hand in greeting, the large meat cleaver glinting in what little light there was to be had under the house. 

   Draco’s false memories informed him in no uncertain terms, that this was Mayor Abattoir; in all his glory. 

 _“Back!”_ Draco all but screamed.  _“Back, go back!”_

   Bones was already scrabbling across the floor along the way they had come, but the doors had indeed been released, and the corridor was now blocked.  Those that had been held captive in the cells were not entirely human as Draco had suspected, but living, walking skeletons, with only rags of flesh and cloth left hanging from their frames.  Their empty eye sockets seemed to seek him and Bones out regardless, and their finger joints clacked as they reached for out for them. 

   They had no choice but to try the other way in the t-junction, but even in his panicked state Draco could tell that was wrong. 

   Abattoir would have been coming _from_ the basement.  They needed to get past him.  _If only he had his wand!_  

   Draco was hysterical, that was the only explanation for the way his adrenaline kicked in and instead of running away, he lunged forwards, seizing the nearest skeleton by its arm, and yanked as hard as he could.   “Are you _crazy!”_  Bones howled, but as he’d hoped, the arm came lose, and now he had a weapon.

   And not a second too soon.  He spun, just as the meat cleaver came down, and he parried the blade away. 

   For the first time in his life, Draco mentally thanked his father profusely for all the fencing lessons he had been forced to endure. 

   Abattoir was strong and merciless, but Draco was fast and delicate.  He may have only had a bit of old bone, but he knew how to glance away the clumsy blows the Mayor was throwing, and slowly, he forced him back the way he had come. 

   Of course though, bone was no match for a sharpened knife, and despite his best efforts Abattoir was still hacking chunks out of his humerus until it inevitably shattered.  But Draco had other kinds of Bones to rely on.  “Here!” the dog shouted just as his makeshift weapon snapped apart, and Draco risked a glance back and down.  In less than a second, he was able to see that his companion was using his heavy jaw to launch at the stumbling skeleton hoard, who moved more like shuffling zombies than the humans they had once presumably been. 

   Having seen how easily Draco had broken the first one’s arm away, Bones was now latching onto their legs, giving each one a ferocious shake, and forcing them to tumble apart. 

   As he ducked another swing from Abattoir, Draco was able to snatch up several more bones, so he had a femur and tibia in each hand, working with both to beat the Mayor back.

   Abattoir was hissing as he worked tirelessly, spittle flying from between his teeth, his bug-eyes impossibly wide and a manic laugh continuously barking from his throat.  But Draco was fighting for his life – for Bones’ life – for _Harry’s_ life – and there was a fire in his belly he’d never felt before. 

   When one of the thigh bones snapped at a particularly beautiful sharp angle, Draco wasted no time switching tactics and thrusting forwards, managing to utilise the element of surprise to skewer the bastard right through his repulsive apron and into his chest. 

   “COME ON!” he roared at Bones, turning to take in the mountain of bones the small dog had managed to accumulate in such a short amount of time.  “Good boy!” Draco laughed as they sprinted past the momentarily incapacitated mayor.  “Who’s a good boy?  Who’s going to get a juicy steak?” 

   “Talk to me like that again,” Bones half panted, half snarled.  “And it’ll be your leg I’ll sink my teeth into next!”

   Draco just laughed harder though as they slammed through the door that would finally lead them down to the basement.

   Then stopped dead.

   It was the pitchest black he’d even seen.  It wasn’t just dark.  It was the absence of all light.

   “Wha-” he stuttered. 

   _“Go!”_ Bones shouted as Draco realised the impaled Mayor was getting to his feet again, and his skeleton hoard were climbing over their fallen brethren. 

   He took a step, but it was a step down and he stumbled, catching the wall just beyond the black for support before he fell.  He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t fumble around in the dark with a homicidal pillar of the community and his reanimated chums merrily chasing behind him.

   Bones pushed on his back legs and reached up so his front paws dug into Draco’s thigh.  “Pick me up and I’ll guide you!” he cried desperately. 

   “You can see in that?” Draco gasped, looking into the soul-wrenching blackness, hefting him up even as he spoke. 

   “I’m _special!”_ Bones bellowed.  _“Remember?”_

With that, Draco fled down the stairs, with what was possibly the heaviest ever small dog under his right arm and the bone-sword still thrusting forward in his left.  He closed his eyes to help with the awful disorientation of the complete blackness, and just kept dropping his feet, one after the other. 

   “You’re coming to the end!” Bones shouted.  “Three,” he yelled in time with Draco’s footfall.  “Two, ONE!”

   True to his word, at that Draco stumbled forwards on flat ground.  “Please tell me this is the basement we need?” he begged as the sound of cluttering footsteps reached the top of the staircase.

   “Yes, yes!” Bones yelped.  “Go left – stop!  Go right.  Keep going…keep going…”

   The skeletons were rattling and Abattoir was still laughing like he was having the time of his former-life, but Draco blocked them out, thinking only of Bones and his instructions.

   _“Stop!_   Okay, forward, forward, forw-” 

   Draco’s face smashed into something wooden, despite his best efforts to brace himself with his hands full of dogs and bones.  “Ow,” he whimpered. 

   “The door!” Bones hollered.  “The door, that’s the door – open it!”

   Draco didn’t hesitate.  He dropped the bone-sword and smacked at the wood until his hand found the protrusion of the handle, then he forced it down with everything he had.

   He fell forwards into the further darkness, Bones still firmly clutched to his chest, and he prayed that wherever they would land would be better than where they had just come from. 

 


	8. VIII

 

   It was mid-morning by the time Hermione found herself walking out to the front of the school with Ron by her side, both of them bundled up against the harsh Scottish winds as they prepared to traipse out into the forest.  She had debated not doing anything with her hair at all after Pansy’s barb, but it really had looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, so, deciding it was for _practical_ reasons, she had spent a few minutes fighting a brush through it, then had platted it the best she could and shoved a bobble hat on top of her head.

   Ron was wearing actual clothes now rather than his pyjamas, and no less than two of his mother’s jumpers, though Hermione suspected it might actually have been three from his unnatural bulk.  They barrelled out of the front door, ignoring the other students who passed, and set out into the cold air. 

   No one else knew yet what had happened to Harry and Malfoy.  Hermione had debated telling Ginny, seeing as she and Harry were still close even though they were no longer dating, but part of her didn’t want anyone to worry until they knew there was a real danger.  Obviously it wasn’t great that Harry was in some sort of coma, but hopefully it would be just temporary, and the Healers would fix him (and Malfoy) soon.

   She would rather he didn’t have to face any drama when he woke up; he had already faced so much over the years.  This was his chance to be normal, a regular student, and she didn’t want to spread some rumour about him having another near-death experience or something if there was a simple solution right around the corner. 

   So it was just her and Ron that ventured outside to go find the spot where Harry had been found.  The only thing different from their normal sort of investigating they’d done over the years was that Pansy Parkinson was waiting on the bottom step for them, idly smoothing down the fur trim on her gloves.

   She had a tailored, three quarter length, dusty pink coat on with silver buttons that probably cost more than Hermione’s whole duffle coat, which was now making her feel pretty cumbersome as she walked up to the other girl.  A darker pink French beret was angled artfully on her sleek black hair, and her socks were now almost entirely covered by purplish-grey, suede, knee-high boots.

   Hermione could practically feel Ron scowling from beside her, but Pansy pushed off from the stone banister she had been leaning on with a little skip and met Hermione as they reached the bottom step.

   “There you both are,” she said cheerfully, unabashedly reaching over to straighten Hermione’s scarf and stroking the end of her plat.  The moment was over before it had begun, and Hermione wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or not.  Ron’s hand slipped firmly against hers though, and she shook herself with a cough. 

   “Shall we get going?” she asked.

   Pansy nodded and spun on her heels.  “Of course,” she told them as she began to crunch over the frozen ground towards the woods.  “Follow me.”

   “Why the bloody Hell is she being nice to us?” Ron muttered into Hermione’s ear.  She gave a baffled shake of her head.

   “She said something about us always getting Harry back in one piece,” she suggested.  “Perhaps she’s buttering us up so we’ll do the same for Malfoy?”

   Ron grunted.  “I’d be happy to leave Malfoy to rot,” he said through gritted teeth, and then he sighed.  “But it’s not what you do is it?  You help people, because it’s right?  Not because someone decides to suddenly treat you as a human being.”

   Hermione chewed her lip.  “She’s Slytherin,” she offered.  “Maybe she doesn’t see it like that?”

   _“She,”_ Pansy said cheerfully, but with an underlying steeliness.  “Will do whatever it takes to help her best friend.  Including eavesdropping on gossiping Gryffindors.”

   Hermione blushed, ashamed, but Ron didn’t seem to care much.  “Alright then Parkinson, where are we going?  How do we know you’re not taking us on some wild goose chase?”

   Pansy sighed and turned around, waiting for them to catch up with her.  “Now what would be the point in that?”

   Ron shrugged.  “Kicks?”

   Pansy scoffed and began stomping over the grass once more, the tree line lurking up ahead and looking particularly uninviting.  “Yes, I wanted to lure you out here and waste all our time whilst Draco and Potter wither away and _die.”_

   “Die?” Ron repeated, colour draining from his face.

   Hermione squeezed his gloved hand.  “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” she said firmly, and mostly believing it.  “So are we retracing your steps from last night?” she asked their companion diplomatically. 

   Pansy drew her wand out from her coat pocket and gave it a swish, pointing them slightly to the left.  “Yes,” she said, focusing on the woodland trail ahead, although it was dwindling by the minute and Hermione guessed if they carried on like this they would soon be battling through the undergrowth.  “Like I said, when midnight rolled around and Draco still did not appear, I activated our _Vinculum_ charm.  It’s a mild bonding spell,” she clarified before Ron could ask.  Hermione had of course mastered it in their Sixth Year, but she had never used one practically. 

   “Why do you have that?” Ron asked.

   Pansy arched an eyebrow.  “After all the horrors he had to go through the last couple of years, I wanted to make sure I could keep an eye on him.”

   Hermione could understand that, although she couldn’t say she was as sympathetic to Malfoy’s plight as pretty much everyone else she knew.  “And it pulled you towards Malfoy?” she questioned. 

   Pansy nodded, walking them around several logs that had been piled up together.  “At first I thought it was a bit of a joke, that he and Potter were hiding out in the forest of all places, but then I just kept on walking, and when I discovered them unconscious and freezing it didn’t seem so funny after all.”

   Hermione shivered, despite the layers of clothing she had on.  “I’m glad you found them,” she admitted in a small voice.”

   “Me too,” Pansy agreed in a tone lacking its usual rancour.

   “But what were they _doing_ all the way out here?” Ron asked.  They were so deep in the forest now the weak November sunshine was struggling to permeate the canopy, and the gloom put Hermione’s nerves on end.  “Were they fighting?”  Ron carried on.  “They seemed to be getting along alight lately – you know – for them.” 

   Pansy tutted.  “Shall you explain it to him darling,” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes as Hermione.  “Or I?”

   Hermione frowned at her.  “Um, what?” she said.

   Pansy huffed and looked back in front of her again.  “For someone so clever you are rather dim at times.”

   Hermione bristled, but she had no idea what Pansy was referring to, so decided not to respond.  Instead, they trampled on in silence for some time until what looked like a clearing appeared up ahead, distinguishable from the ring of pale sunshine that was lighting the grass on the ground. 

   Sensing this was it, Hermione quickened her pace, dragging Ron along and then letting him go altogether as the three of them entered the glade. 

   “Here we are,” Pansy said, opening her hands in a slightly hopeless gesture. 

   Hermione turned in a circle, taking in the half a dozen or so trees that lined the grass.  “They were just here?”

   “On the ground,” Pansy explained, indicating the spot with her wand.  “In front of these two trees, like they had just collapsed.  I couldn’t wake them up, so I summoned McGonagall, and she came with Pomfrey.”  She rubbed her arm and moved to look at some of the other trees, lifting her free hand to touch the bark.  “I thought there might have been something on here last night, but maybe it was the moonlight playing tricks?”

   She didn’t sound convinced though, so Hermione stood from where she and Ron had been inspecting the grass and cast a quick _Lux_ spell.

   The result was immediate. 

   Images blossomed into life on each of the trees; not terribly strong, but clear enough to make out in the weak sunshine and the light from her spell. 

   “It’s a heart,” Pansy said in surprise, withdrawing her hand quickly from the bark.

   “And a bonfire?” Hermione said, peering around at the several trees.  There was a prayer mat, a colourful egg, and the two by Ron detailed a Christmas tree and a Jack-O-Lantern.  “What does it mean?”

   The three of them stood and stared for a little while as Hermione turned over the possibilities in her mind. 

   “Well,” she said eventually.  “I guess this represents Christmas and Halloween,” she said, pointing at the more obvious pictures.  “So I guess that’s Valentine’s?”

   “That’s Guy Fawkes night,” added Ron eagerly.  “And Easter.”

   “Look at this,” Pansy murmured, and made her way back a little into the trees. 

   Even if the images had not grown more defined for whatever reason, they wouldn’t have necessarily noticed the other markings as they would have been to their backs.  But now, as they fanned out and made their way back into the woods from the glade, it was clear to see that the trees were all organised in rings around the clearing, and each one of them had a different picture on the bark.  Hermione spotted fireworks and a daffodil, a shamrock and a frying pan, even what looked to be a portrait of Shakespeare and another of a face laughing so hard it was crying.   

   “I think they’re all holidays,” she said, looking back the way they had come.  “Do you see?”

   “Yeah,” said Ron.  “But what’s the fish for?”  He had ventured into the third ring of trees, and as it was gloomier again, he lit his wand to see better.  “Or a teddy bear, or a bunch of vegetables-”

   As soon as he held his wand up towards the tree with the vegetables, a gust of wind tore so fiercely through the woods that Hermione was pushed forward, and she tripped on her own feet, sprawling to the ground.  But she looked up just in time to see the vegetables become startlingly clear, like the colours had intensified tenfold, and then suddenly the image swung open like a door.

   And dragged Ron towards it.

   _“Accio Weasley!”_ Pansy’s voice cut through the gale, hauling him away from the hole in the tree, and Hermione scrambled to her feet, her own wand raised.

   _“Colloportus!”_ she screamed, slamming the door back shut and locking it tight.

   The three of them retreated into the centre of the clearing, all breathing heavily from the shock.  “What the _Hell_ just happened?” Ron demanded, clutching at his chest.

   Hermione shook her head and looked at Pansy.  “I’m not sure,” she said. 

   But it didn’t bode well for Harry or Malfoy. 

 


	9. IX

 

   For a moment, Harry thought it hadn’t worked at all.  He shot down the chimney stack, and aside from a moment of weightlessness, it felt like he simply fell all the way to the bottom, bouncing painfully off of a pile of dry wooden logs.

   He cried out as Rocky the robin took flight from his shoulder, flying anxiously in several quick circles.  “Are you alright Harry?” he chirped, fluttering by Harry’s head to land on his shoulder as he groaned and righted himself. 

   “I think I’m okay,” he uttered, rubbing his lower back and blinking his eyes.

   It was then he realised that he was not, in fact, inside the town hall of Christmas Land.

   He was instead surrounded by stack upon stack of red envelopes, towing over his head all the way up to the ceiling.  There was a narrow pathway left leading away from the fireplace, which forked left and right several feet from where Harry was shakily getting to his feet.  “Where are we?” he asked Rocky, brushing debris from his trousers and picking up the hamper containing his lunch and resting the stick on his shoulder again. 

   Rocky fluffed up his wings and pointed forwards with his beak.  “Not entirely sure,” he admitted.  “Shall we go and find out?”

   Harry rolled his head, making his neck crick, then stepped forward to investigate.  Deciding right over left, he followed the narrow pathway through the identical towers of red envelopes until he caught a glimmer of sunlight, then marched through the twists and turns towards it.  He was torn between moving slowly and cautiously so as not to disturb any of the thousands of envelopes with the bindle on his travelling stick, and hurrying ahead to discover where he was.

   The hallway opened up into a workshop framed by a window that showed a street outside that looked not entirely dissimilar to an average scene in Christmas Land.  Cobbles lined the ground and wooden signs swung in the wintery sunshine that Harry couldn’t quite read through the square panes that made up the window in front of him.  It didn’t help either that his view was blocked by a girl about his age sat at a desk facing out towards the street, and she turned at the sound of Harry’s entrance.

   She had long black hair, light brown skin and slanted, almond eyes that narrowed at the sight of Harry and Rocky.  She had a sheet of red paper in her hands, halfway folded, and Harry realised she was flanked by a pile of regular paper on her right, and finished folded envelopes on her left.  A gummy paintbrush was tucked behind her right ear, and her silk tunic was stained with countless streaks of what Harry guessed to be glue.

   “Um, hi?” he said.

   _“Nai Nai!”_ the girl hollered, spinning on her stool to face her work bench again.  “We’ve got another one!”

   Harry glanced at Rocky, who shrugged his little feathery shoulders.  So not knowing what else to do, Harry moved closer to the girl.  “Um, I was hoping you could tell me what land this is?” he asked.  “You see, I’m looking for someone and I’ve never been outside Christmas Land-”

   The girl sighed loudly as she finished folding the red sheet of paper and whipped the paintbrush free from her hair to dip into the pot of glue waiting on the desk and slapped a good amount on the folded seams.  “Of course you haven’t, you’re an elf.  Nothing’s more important than Christmas, so why should you bother going anywhere else?”

   Harry opened his mouth to reply, stung by her hostile words, but he was cut off by an elderly lady entering from another narrow corridor made up by the envelope stacks.   “Now, now Fan,” she chuckled as she hobbled forwards with the aid of a walking cane. 

   Like the girl, who Harry guessed was named Fan, she wore a red, silk tunic buttoned to the right side of her body, black trousers, and red and black slippers embroidered in gold with something that could have been a snake.  Harry wondered if it was a sort of uniform, like he and his friends wore to work, that he was still wearing in fact.

   The older lady shuffled over to inspect Harry and Rocky, and Harry stood up straighter under her scrutiny and she peered over her half-moon glasses.  “You look a little lost, boy?”

   Harry cleared his throat and tried a small smile.  “I’m not lost, exactly,” he said, “but I’m looking for someone who I think is.  And, um, I’m not sure what land I’ve come to.”

   That got another scoff from Fan as she angrily made fast work of another envelope.  Once she finished one, it would fly up of its own accord and joins its fellows at the top of the nearest stack, adding to the winding labyrinth of the business’ interior. 

   “Don’t mind her,” the elderly lady said with a wave of her gnarled hand, and she trundled over to take a seat in a well-worn armchair, the only other furniture visible other than Fan’s desk and stool.  “She just thinks Spring Festival should be a major holiday no matter what part of the world you are from.”

   “One _billion_ Chinese people, Nai Nai,” Fan grumbled, finishing another envelope in record time.  Harry could see how the shop was so easily filled with them.  “These Westerners need to be told.”

   “I’ll leave that to young minds like yours,” Nai Nai said cheerfully, resting her hands on the top of her cane, which Harry realised was also decorated with the head of a snake.  “You might call Spring Festival ‘Chinese New Year’, am I right?” she asked Harry and Rocky.

   “Ohh,” they said together, and Harry immediately felt bad.  He’d heard of many places outside of Christmas Land, and Chinese New Year was indeed one of them.  “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling the heat of embarrassment rise up his neck.  “That was terribly rude of me, of course I’ve heard of Spring Festival Land.  You make the best fireworks, everyone says so.”

   Actually, he knew all too well of the ongoing competition between these people and those of Guy Fawkes Land as to who made the most impressive firecrackers, but he decided against mentioning the feud in that moment.  Largely, because at the praise Fan seemed to relax a little, and was attacking her envelopes with a fraction less ferocity. 

   “It seems you have some sense about you boy,” said Nai Nai with a satisfied nod.  Harry was quite sure she knew he was being extra nice to try and make up for his rudeness at not recognising their land quicker, but she gave him a wink so he hoped things were okay between them.  “Now, what brings you here to Spring Festival Land?  You said you were looking for someone?”

   Harry shifted on his feet, acutely aware again of how daunting his task was.  “Um, yes, ma’am,” he said, tagging on the title as a mark of respect.  Fan peeked briefly over her shoulder as a finished envelope flitted upwards, then hastily grabbed another sheet of paper.  “I’m looking for my friend, I think…I think he might be in danger.”

   “Oh dear me,” said Nai Nai with a frown that added extra wrinkles to her already heavily lined face.  “And you think he might be in Serpent’s Square?”

   Harry blinked and shifted the stick on his shoulder.  “I thought,” he said slowly, aware he was about to put his foot in it again.  “This was Spring Festival Land?”

   The huff from Fan confirmed his hesitations, and she spun around once again.  “Don’t you elves know anything?” she demanded, arms crossed and glue dripping from her paint brush onto her trousers.  “Spring Festival is divided into twelve districts to honour each of the twelve animals of the calendar.  Any child should know-”

   “Fan,” Nai Nai warned.  “Our guest is trying his hardest.”

   “I’m sorry,” Harry said sincerely again, wringing his hands.  Fan’s expression softened a bit, and she sighed. 

   “Well,” she prompted impatiently.  “What makes you think he might be here?”

   “I don’t,” Harry said honestly.  “He could be anywhere, in fact, I’m not entirely sure he’s real.  I just had a dream-”

   “A nightmare,” Rocky interrupted firmly, taking flight to land on the arm of Nai Nai’s chair.  “And nobody has nightmares in Christmas Land.  We’re on a quest of true love, and we think we might find some answers in Halloween Land.”

   “Oh,” said Fan, sitting up straighter.  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an elf willing to go there.”  She narrowed her eyes at him.  “This boy must be really special.  What’s his name?”

   Harry’s shoulders slumped in defeat.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “All I know is that he’s tall, with blond hair and grey eyes.  And…I think he’s sad.  Or he’s in trouble, I’m really not sure.” 

   He sounded ridiculous and he knew it, but both the women looked at him with sympathy.  “Well I’m afraid there’s no one like that around here that I know of,” said Nai Nai.  “Blond hair is very unusual in these parts.”

   “But if you’d like to go to Halloween Land,” cried Fan, shooting to her feet and dislodging several sheets of paper so they fluttered to the wooden floorboards.  “I can take you, I know the way.”

   “You also have much work to do,” Nai Nai admonished with a raised eyebrow, and Fan’s hands dropped to her sides.  “Besides, no good ever came out of Halloween Land.  Nothing but trouble.” 

   “I work _every_ day,” she pleaded.  “I never get to have any fun.  Please let me take the elf over to the portal.  I won’t actually _go_ to Halloween Land, I just want to see the portal in action.  If you let me go, I’ll never ask for anything again, _ever.”_

   Nai Nai rolled her eyes.  “Oh don’t be so dramatic,” she said with the hint of a smile.  “We both know you’ll be asking for new brushes and sweet dumplings by the end of the week.  Go on, be off with you, have some fun and leave your old Nai Nai in peace.”

   Fan squealed and danced on her toes before dashing over to hug the older woman.  Harry suspected she might be her grandmother, but he wasn’t willing to put his foot in it again.  “Come on Harry-the-Elf,” she said happily, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the front door.  “Let’s help you find your true love.”

   “He’s _not_ my true love,” he mumbled as he was dragged outside, but Rocky just chuckled as he landed back on his shoulder.

   “Yeah,” he drawled.  “Because people just go trekking all over the many lands for any old body.” 

   The door to the shop closed behind them with the tinkle of a bell, and Harry took in his first proper glimpse of Spring Festival Land.  He’d been right, in that it looked a lot like home the way the street was cobbled and the old businesses with wooden shutters lined the pavements, but in their nature they were quite different to the ones he was used to in Christmas Land. 

   He turned and looked up at the sign on Fan and Nai Nai’s place, which read _“Lucky Gifts”_ and had an emblem of a small pile of coins beside it.  Either side and across the road were dozens of different kinds of cleaning businesses; carpets and curtains, floorboards and ceilings, bath tubs and kitchen sinks, even one to scrub up your pets so they were _“Flea free and fluffy for a fee!”_   

   A little further down, he could make out a hairdressers and a tea shop, however it was hard to tell through the mist that was creeping up the street, and he shivered despite the fact he was used to the snow of Christmas Land.  He wasn’t the only one though, as Fan hugged herself and rubbed her hands quickly up and down her arms.  “Well, this isn’t normal,” she said as her head whipped back and forth, tossing her long sheet of hair over her shoulders. 

   “It isn’t?” Harry asked warily. 

   She shook her head and walked slowly down the street to their right, eyeing up the closed doors on the various establishments either side of them.  “Oi, Chang!” she shouted unabashedly at the window of the place that offered pristine cleaning of your fish tanks _and_ your fish (for a special joint discount price). 

   The window on the second floor above the front door opened and a boy a bit older than Fan and Harry poked his head out.  “What are you doing?” he hissed, motioning that she go back to her own shop.  “Get out of the street!”

   Fan raised an eyebrow.  “You’re afraid of a little smoke?” she asked dubiously.

   Chang wiped his hands on his work apron and glanced nervously up and down the street, where Harry realised the fog was now so thick he could no longer see more than a couple of dozen feet in each direction.  Rocky fidgeted on his shoulder. 

   “No,” said the boy.  “Afraid of what’s _in_ the smoke.  My Nai Nai says it’s the _Nian.”_  

   Fan laughed out loud at that and placed her hands on her hips.  “Lin Chang,” she scolded, then wagged a finger up at the older boy.  “The _Nian_ is a children’s story.  You expect me to hide from a bit of mist because of a myth?”

   “Suit yourself,” Chang squeaked with a shrug, then snapped his window shut again.

   Fan made an indignant noise, then turned back to Harry with a frown.  “He’s right though,” she said suspiciously.  “The fog is strange, and it’s funny it should turn up just as you did.”

   Harry took a moment to register her meaning.  “What?” he squeaked, then cleared his throat.  “No, no this isn’t me.” 

   Fan didn’t seem all that convinced as she chewed her lip.  “But, it’s sort of like snow isn’t it, could you have brought it with you?”

   Harry spluttered out a laugh.  “This, snow?” he scoffed.  “It’s not an official snow fall unless you can make a regulation-proportion snow man of a minimum of three feet,” he informed her.  “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like this before?”

   Except, he did know it was at least called fog.  Maybe he had seen it somewhere?  Maybe he had heard about it in a story or something, because Christmas Land never got weather like that. 

   “Hmm,” said Fan, unsure as she chewed on her thumbnail. 

  Harry shifted on his feet as she eyed him up.  “So, what’s a _Nian?”_ he asked, trying to change the subject.  There may have been strange things going on, but he knew he wasn’t the cause of the mist. 

   “Just a story,” Fan explained, shifting her gaze to the edge of the fog.  It seemed to be getting thicker, and possibly creeping closer to them.  “It’s a monster that steals children.”

   Harry jerked to attention immediately.  “Then we should stay back,” he said, stepping in front of her and putting his arm out.  “After all, anything is possible.”

   Fan spat out a laugh and pushed his arm back down.  “It really is just a story, but that was very cute of you to protect me from the big, bad beast.”

   Harry felt a flush heat up his cheeks.  “Sorry,” he mumbled. 

   “Nah, it’s okay,” she said and ran her fingers through her thick hair.  “Look, okay, I’m not saying I believe you, but right now all I see is some weird mist.  So, I guess I’ll just have to trust you?”

   “Listen girlie, do you want to come with us to the portal, or not?” Rocky demanded a little rudely in Harry’s opinion, but it did seem to snap Fan out of her suspicions. 

   “Yes,” she said decisively.  Harry guessed it wasn’t often she got to spend time out of Nai Nai’s envelope shop.  “But we can’t go fumbling around in that.”  She pointed towards the fog, unimpressed.  “Let me go grab a lantern from the shop, then we can go to your portal, okay?” 

   Harry nodded to show that was fine by him, and tightened his grip on the travelling stick that held his packed handkerchief as she dashed back through the door of _“Lucky Gifts”._   “What do you think Rocky?”

   The little bird puffed up.  “I think there might actually be something fishy going on here,” he said, narrowing his beady black eyes.  “But don’t tell her that.  How about I go see if I can’t find any of my scouts, then I meet you back at the portal?”

   Harry wasn’t so keen on the idea of splitting up, as no matter how brave the robin was he still was very small, but he agreed all the same.  Rocky knew what he was doing, and it would be better to find out what was going on if they could.  “Don’t take too long,” he called as the small bird vanished into the fog.

   Harry sighed, and looked around him, not that there was much to see just then.  The mist made him think of his nightmare, and he strained again to try and dredge up any memories he could about his mystery boy.

   He couldn’t swear it, but he felt like they had been in a forest, and it was dark, night time probably.  That didn’t sound particularly romantic or fun, but in Harry’s mind the boy had looked so beautiful his chest ached.  He hoped with his whole heart that he was really real.  Otherwise, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with himself. 

   A sound to the left caught his attention, and Harry cocked his head to listen.  It wasn’t Fan coming back, as he could still see the door to her envelope shop despite the haze that hung in the air.  But then it came again, from within the cold mist, and Harry shuffled on his feet.  “Hello?” he called uncertainly. 

   It was sort of a clattering noise, and it was coming closer and closer.

   Harry scowled, not liking the shiver of apprehension that fluttered over his skin.  “Hello?” he demanded again.  “Who’s there?”

   The fog swirled, and Harry leaped back.  He hadn’t heard Fan re-emerge onto the street once again, but he certainly heard her scream now, and he couldn’t say he blamed her.  Because what came shuffling out of the mist was too awful to comprehend, and Harry’s whole body electrified in horror. 

   They were skeletons, walking completely of their own accord, with scraps of bloody flesh and strips of cloth dangling from their bones.  They each held some sort of blade in one hand, and a roll of parchment in the other, both outstretched towards where Harry and Fan were standing.

   Or had been, rather, as they both backed away promptly in revulsion at the sight of the advancing hoard.  Harry didn’t even know what he was doing before he had swung his travelling stick around, hit the end with the handkerchief tied to it with a decisive bang on the stone floor to dislodge the bindle, then spun the stick around so it was held between both of his hands, like a sword.

   He blinked at the wooden pole now in front of him in confusion.

   “What are you planning on doing with that?” Fan asked from beside him, her own hand raised with the lamp, as if hoping the light might keep them at bay.

   “I’ve not got a bloody clue,” Harry admitted in a shaky voice.  He wasn’t sure how he’d made his hands move like that, it was as if they’d had a mind of their own.  Which made no sense?  It wasn’t like he had ever held a sword before? 

   The skeleton hoard though stopped a few feet from them.  Although their weapons were still raised, they made no move to swing them down, and Harry held his breath.  Instead, they all stamped their left foot in union, turned so they were all facing outwards in a circle, then let the parchment sheets they were holding roll down to reveal a poster.

 _“HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?”_ the script demanded in bold, menacing letters that suggested there was a ransom involved, rather than a reward for safe return.  But then Harry looked at the picture that each of the posters bore, and his stomach dropped into his shiny black boots.

   As the skeletons didn’t seem to be attacking, several people were peeping out of the corners of their windows, and some were even brave enough to crack their doors open an inch or two.  They all gawked at the image the skeletons were displaying, and one by one began to shake their heads.  “No,” was the general consensus.  They had not seen that boy.

   But Harry had.

   “That’s him,” he whispered into Fan’s ear, desperately hoping the skeletons didn’t notice.  Just because they weren’t being violent yet, it didn’t mean that they wouldn’t if given half a chance. 

   “What?” she hissed back, not taking her eyes off of the repulsive circle of cadavers. 

   “My boy.  On the poster.”

   Fan squinted at the illustration, then her eyes widened.  “Blond hair?” she asked.

   It was just a line inking, but from the way they had hardly shaded the boy’s hair, it certainly looked like it could be blond, so Harry nodded.  But it was more than that.  He felt like he would recognise the cut of those cheekbones, the curve of that mouth, or the sweep of those long eyelashes anywhere in all the lands. 

   “He’s real,” he whispered.

   “He’s in a whole world of trouble,” Fan breathed back.  Unfortunately, they must have done something to catch the invading skeletons’ eye, as the one closest to them suddenly snapped its head around and took three swift steps towards where Harry and Fan stood, brandishing the wanted poster with renewed vigour. 

   Harry jerked in anticipation, but his feet remained planted and he kept his stick held high.  Not that it would do much if the skeletons decided to attack, but it made him feel a little bit better at least. 

   The skeleton obviously couldn’t speak, but Harry felt its dark eye sockets boring into him with such intensity there was no mistaking what it wanted to know as it shook the picture of Harry’s boy again.  “What?” Harry snapped, throwing his shoulders back and not daring to even blink.  “I’ve never seen him before, I have no idea where he might be.”  Technically, he thought that might even be true. 

   The skeleton glared suspiciously at him for another minute, and Harry refused to let himself squirm.  He wasn’t going to give anything away about his boy if he could possibly help it. 

   Eventually, the skeleton slowly lowered its arm, and after one last bony glower at Harry and Fan, it rolled up the poster once more, and beckoned for its fellows to follow it into the other side of the mist, carrying on in the direction they had been walking before they had come to a stop.  Harry and Fan pressed back against the nearest building wall, and watched silently as they marched on by. 

   “Phew!” Fan exclaimed in relief, blowing out a lungful of air as they finally vanished, and the fog began to dissipate behind them too.  “I thought that was going to get unpleasant there for a moment.”

   “I think it already did,” said Harry gravely as the sun broke through, burning off the last of the mist that had been lingering. 

   “Harry, Harry!” a little voice chirped, and he looked up to see Rocky flying through the air as fast as he could, before tumbling to an emergency stop and toppling into Harry’s outstretched hand. 

   “Rocky?” he cried as the small robin panted.  “What’s wrong, did you see the skeletons?”

   “And then some,” Rocky scoffed, flapping his wings as if to shake out a cramp.  “Did you seen what they were carrying?”

   “Apart from mighty big swords?” Fan asked. 

   Harry fished up his handkerchief bundle off the floor to sheepishly reattach it to his travelling stick.  What had he been thinking, trying to defend himself and Fan like that?  “The wanted posters?” he asked, and Rocky nodded.  “Yeah,” he sighed in affirmation as he propped his stick over his shoulder again, ready to go.  “Yeah that was the boy from my nightmare, or as close as I can be sure.” 

   Rocky took flight in a blur, landing on the stick as if it had been made for him to sit on.  “Then I’d say you were right – that he’s definitely in some trouble if the HSP are after him!”

   Harry frowned, not liking the sound of that.  “The what?”

   “The HSP,” Rocky repeated.  “The Halloween Secret Police, those skinny looking buggers in desperate need of a coffin to lie down in.” 

   “That’s who the skeletons were?” Fan squeaked, and Rocky nodded. 

   “I can’t even remember the last time they left their Land,” he said gravely.   “Oh this is bad Harry, really bad.” 

   Fan hugged herself.  “Nai Nai warned us that nothing good ever comes out of Halloween Land.”  She looked sceptically at Harry.  “Are you sure that’s him?  And if it is, that he’s not trying to trick you or something?”

   He swallowed the lump in his throat, and tried to ignore the people hanging out of their doors and windows to hear what they were talking about.  That was, except for Fan’s Nai Nai, who was stood at her threshold, her cane in front of her with two hands placed firmly over the top.  She gave Harry a single nod of encouragement, and he steeled himself. 

   His boy was real, he wasn’t just a dream.  But he was in trouble, and Harry had to help him, however he could.  “Yes, it’s him,” he answered to Fan.  “And, no…I don’t know what his intentions are, I just know how I feel.”  That sounded so stupid, but he couldn’t ignore the way his heart was tugging him towards the mystery boy.  He felt such a strong urge to protect him, to know he was safe.

   “Look, we all know Halloween Land isn’t to be trusted,” Rocky said as people began to lose interest and drift back inside.  “But from the sounds of it your boy is wanted back there quite fiercely.  Which can only mean he’s done something bad.”

   Harry swallowed.  “That’s not good,” he said worriedly.

   Rocky scoffed.  “Well, no, not good in that they want to catch him, but if he’s pissed the mayor off enough, good folks like you and I would probably consider whatever he did a very good thing indeed.”

   Harry’s eyebrows rose hopefully.  “Really?” he said.  He didn’t like the idea of his boy doing anything bad or wrong.  But Rocky nodded firmly.

   “Oh yeah,” he said with a beaky grin.  “I’m liking the sound of this boy of yours more and more.”

   Harry’s insides flipped.  It was all very well when he had been on a whimsical adventure looking for a dream date, but now it seemed his love was not only most definitely flesh and blood, but was also on the run from some very scary people. 

   So if he was real, did that mean him and Harry had actually _met_ before?  How had Harry known to dream of him?  Did that mean…he knew of Harry?  That sent a wash of coldness through him, and he shivered despite the bright sunshine now bathing the street.  Here he was, chasing all over the holiday lands, but how did he know this boy even _liked_ him?  If they were meant to be together, if (like everyone kept saying) he was in fact Harry’s true love, how come he couldn’t even remember his name?  What if they had met, but the boy hadn’t liked him, and had somehow made Harry forget?

   The truth of the matter was, he told himself sternly, that whilst all of these were valid questions, he knew it wasn’t enough to make him give up.  _Especially_ not when he knew the boy was in trouble.  He just needed to focus on finding him, and then he could hopefully discover why he fancied himself in love, despite not knowing for certain if the two of them had ever actually met.

   “Where to then?” he asked his companions. 

   “It probably won’t do any good for you to go to Halloween Land after all,” pondered Fan out loud.  “If they’re looking for him elsewhere, he must be in a different land by now.”

   Rocky nodded.  “Good thinking,” Rocky agreed, and Fan beamed.  “Nope, I reckon our best bet now is to go down again.”

   Harry looked between the bird and the girl.  “You mean, to the third level?” he said hesitantly.  He knew a lot of the second level holidays, but even then he’d struggled to recognise Spring Festival Land.  However, all he really knew about the third level was that there were hundreds of lands, possibly thousands, dedicated to holidays people didn’t even necessarily _know_ about.  The thought made him shudder – people not even being aware your holiday was _happening?_  

   How was he ever going to find his boy in all of those places, especially if the HSP were also on the hunt for him?  It was like trying to find a pine needle in a hay stack. 

   Well, he most definitely wasn’t going to get anywhere by hanging around on the street and not trying at all.  “Okay,” he said decisively.  “I guess that means we need a different portal then?”

   “It does if we want to go downwards,” Rocky confirmed, then took to the air once more.  “Follow me, I think I spotted somewhere on my way back over the districts!”

   Harry glanced at Fan.  “Did you want to come?” he asked, figuring the more help he had, the better, as well as feeling a bit mischievous.  “I mean, your Nai Nai only said it wasn’t a good idea to go to Halloween Land.  She didn’t say anything about the third level, did she?” 

   Fan’s face lit up like Christmas morning, and she grabbed his hand tightly.  “Let’s go find your friend,” she said, and they bolted after Rocky as fast as they could run. 

 


	10. X

 

   Draco almost tripped over his feet as he went flying out of the darkness and into the dim light of what he assumed had to be the new land they had found.  “Quick!” Bones yelled as he scrambled to a halt beside him, then whirled on the spot to launch himself at the wooden door they had just come through.  Draco got the idea pretty sharpish, and threw his hands against the back of it to slam it shut.  It wouldn’t stop the mayor and his skeletons for long if they decided to follow, but it might slow them down a bit.

   “Will he know we’ve come here?” he panted, his whole body trembling.  He wasn’t even sure where ‘here’ was at the moment.  As he glanced around, all he could tell was that they were in a sort of wooden room, with sunlight streaming through the slats and no doors to lead them out, however there were several dark holes in the walls that looked big enough to crawl through.  After his experience in the basement though, Draco couldn’t say he was overly keen to do that. 

   “He’ll know we’re in a second tier holiday land,” Bones said, scampering up to the holes and sniffing them one by one.  “He has several to choose from, but let’s not hang around until he finds us standing here with our arses hanging out.  Okay,” he tapped a paw on the inside of one of the dark openings, and his claws pinged against what was obviously metal.  “This one.”

   “This one?” Draco repeated dumbly, his heart still thumping so loudly in his ears he couldn’t seem to form much of a coherent thought. 

   “Yep,” Bones told him with a grin, then slid forwards on his belly and vanished from sight.

   Draco whimpered.  No one was around to hear it, so he really didn’t care how pathetic it sounded.  He didn’t want to dive into another unknown place, but as he looked over his shoulder and figured a throng of killer skeletons and a psychotic mayor could come bursting through at any second, he weighed up his options and decided that Bones hadn’t steered him wrong so far, so he might as well just take the plunge.

   He fed his legs down the tube first, holding onto the lip of the entrance to brace himself as it felt like it started sloping downwards immediately.  There was nothing for it, he was just going to have to go for it. 

   He inhaled loudly, then shoved his body inside.

   His stomach dropped as he slid down at an alarming rate, twisting and turning in the almost total darkness  He cursed as he banged his head several times and let out a scream as the slide veered lower at an even more acute angle, until it finally, mercifully, spat him out into the bright, warm sunshine. 

   He went head over heels and landed flat on his stomach.  “Urgh,” he grunted, compos mentis enough to be grateful that he was, for now, still alive.  

   “You alright there?” Bones chuckled, licking the side of his face where it had squished into the ground.  At least the dirt was dry and the green grass made it a fraction softer. 

   “Yes,” Draco mumbled into the earth.  “I’m just peachy.”

   He sat up and found himself in a brightly lit forest, leaves on the large trees twitching merrily in the balmy breeze.  It was much more pleasant than the forbidden forest he and Harry had found themselves in the night before, that he had to admit.  Although he wasn’t quite sure where he was still.  By scanning the memories he had inherited from his brief stint as the Prince of Halloween Land, he was able to discount several possible worlds, but that still left a number he could choose from. 

   He thought back to that morning when he had been prince, and instead of enquiring as to where they were, he asked a different question as he stood to his feet and brushed the woodland debris from his black trousers.  “Bones?”

   “Yes, Your Highness?”

   Draco flinched at the teasing remark.  “About that,” he said, unsure where to start, or why he cared at all.  “Um, my mother, in Halloween Land?  What happens to her now I’m gone?”

   Bones had been sniffing around, inspected several tree trunks, but he paused to frown up at Draco.  “What do you mean?” he asked without aggression, but not exactly kindly either. 

   Draco sighed.  “Well, will she miss me?”

   Bones looked surprised, and it was then Draco noticed that he was once again dressed.  Although this time, instead of his bat wings, his little black body was clothed in a green tunic with brown belt, green bowtie at the back of his neck, and most ridiculously, a small green top hat that he definitely hadn’t been wearing at the start of the slide in the tree house they had arrived through. 

   He didn’t get a chance to comment on the new getup though, as Bones replied to his question.  “Miss you?” he repeated.  “Sorry mate, she’s not even going to remember you.  It’ll be like you never existed.  I guess, until some other poor lad finds himself pulled down there, then he might become the Prince like you did.” 

   “Oh,” said Draco as they began to walk.  He mulled on the idea for a while, then came to the conclusion that was probably better than her grieving for his loss.  But he had all these memories swimming around – only half formed, but they were there all the same.  A glimpse of dinners with his parents, and how he had comforted his mother after his father’s passing.

   But that wasn’t real, he told himself sternly.  His _real_ mother was back in the Living Land, in their house in Wiltshire, recovering after their unspeakable time with the Dark Lord and putting her life back together.  He had thousands of memories of her, far more vibrant than the wishy-washy efforts from Halloween Land, and he vowed not to worry about anyone there again.  They would go on with their lives, and he was going to find Harry so they could carry on with theirs, in the _real_ world. 

   He was about to articulate this to Bones, in case he cared why he’d asked his question in the first place, when the bushes to their right erupted with movement, and both Draco and his doggy companion jumped back in surprise.

   “Come here yer bastard!” a voice rang out through the leaves, but the first thing to emerge was not a person, but a green snake, whipping through the grass at an astonishing rate.

   Draco was starting to twig that everything in the whole damn place around them was green, and maybe that was a clue to their whereabouts, when his suspicions were confirmed by the appearance of a foot-high, red-nosed, pipe-smoking leprechaun. 

   His tunic and hat matched Bones’ to the last detail, and he shook his little fist as he scrambled out of the bush after the snake.  In one hand he held a miniature, metallic tankard that sloshed brown liquid over the edges as he got to his feet, but then he spotted the newcomers and stopped in his tracks.

   “Well now, what do we have here?” he demanded, planting his feet and shielding his eyes with his free hand so he could peer up and down at Draco and Bones (well, mostly Draco, as the little fellow wasn’t that much taller than Bones truth be told.)  “You’ll be looking for a pot of gold I’ll guess?”

   “What?” Draco spluttered inelegantly.  “No, not gold, we’re actually looking for-”

   “Try all you like!” the leprechaun hiccupped, brandishing both his pipe and his tankard.  “You’ll never find old Brandon’s pot, for sure now.”

   “We ain’t looking for gold,” Bones snapped, earning the leprechaun Brandon’s somewhat bleary attention.  “We’re looking for a human by the name of Harry.  Ain’t that right, Sunshine?” he added, addressing Draco.

   “Yes,” he jumped in quickly.  “He’s um, a little shorter than me, black hair, green eyes, round glasses, scar shaped like a lightning bolt on his face.”  His insides flipped just thinking about him, which was hugely embarrassing and Draco gritted his teeth against the blush threatening to rise on his cheeks.  “Hard to miss around these parts I’d imagine,” he muttered, aware he knew far too many details about Harry’s appearance than was probably healthy.  “We think he’ll have started in Christmas Land, but he could have wondered away from there by now.” 

   Brandon squinted at him suspiciously.  “And what’re you doing that for then?”

   “What?” asked Draco, unsure.

   “Looking fer a fellow what has a bolt of lightning on his face,” he said, as if that was obvious.  “Sounds like trouble to me.”

   Draco almost opened his mouth to agree that, yes, wherever Harry bloody Potter went generally led to trouble, but he changed his mind, thinking it was probably best that in this instance, Harry’s reputation didn’t proceed him. 

   “He’s not in trouble, at least I don’t think so,” Draco said hopefully.  “But he will be if we don’t find him soon.”  He pulled out an engraved silver pocket watch from his waistcoat and popped the case open to reveal the face.  “We’ve got less than twelve hours to find him and make our way back up through the Lands.”

   That wasn’t all that long, not really.  Not when there was hundreds of lands to explore.  If they were lucky, then maybe Harry would just still be in Christmas Land, and they could just grab him and head back up to the Living Land.  Easy. 

   _Ha,_ thought Draco.  _That would be the day._  

   “Twelve hours before what?” Brandon questioned, rubbing his ruddy nose.

   “Never you mind,” Bones snapped at him, and Draco didn’t miss the way his pointed teeth flashed at the leprechaun.  Brandon just sniffed indifferently though and took another swig of what Draco guessed to be ale.  “You seen him, or not?”

   Brandon shrugged his tiny shoulders.  “How would I know, been chasing that there snake for all the morning, and the little bugger got away anyhow thanks to you.”

   “What did we do?” demanded Draco indignantly.

   “Well you were there weren’t you,” scoffed Brandon as he waved his pipe at him.  “Being all tall and…strange.  Where did you say you were from now?”

   “We didn’t,” Bones told him pointedly.  “Alright then, half-pint, how about you take us to civilisation, or whatever passes for it around here.  Maybe they’ll have heard something about a newcomer.”  He scratched irritably at the bowtie, then shook himself.  “If not, we’ll just use your portal up to Crimbo Land, and leave you mad lot to your snakes.”

   Brandon blew a raspberry and glugged another mouthful of ale.  “What’s in it fer me, doggy?  I should just toddle on me way and see about finding some more of those devil serpents.”

   Bones tilted his head, making his top hat go skew-whiff.  “The Prince here will pay you.”

   “I will?” squeaked Draco.

   “You will,” affirmed Bones.

   “With what, exactly?”  He crouched down so he could hiss at him without Brandon hearing.  “I’m not actually a prince, remember?”

   “Yes,” Bones whispered back even quieter.  “But _he_ don’t need to know that, does he?”

   They both glanced over towards Brandon, who was back to hiccupping and doing a little jig, completely unaware. 

   “This is true,” Draco agreed. 

   He stood and cleared his throat.  “Come along, leprechaun,” he said in his most regal voice.  “Take us to St Patrick’s Town, and your rewards will be great.”

   Brandon stopped dancing, and his eyes shone as he looked up towards Draco.  “Yeh promise?”

   “Cross my heart,” said Draco, feeling only a little bit bad. 

   Brandon’s face split into a grin, and he started skipping down the woodland path.  “Well come on then,” he cried, clicking his heels as he hopped back and forth.  “Follow me!” 

   The day was pleasant, and the cloudless sky particularly bright after the gloominess of Halloween Land.  There was a colourful rainbow intersecting the blue, cutting from one edge of the land to the other, and despite everything else going on, it couldn’t help but have a cheering effect.  Draco took a deep breath as Brandon began leading them out of the forest, and tried to calm his nerves.  They had hours to find Harry, it would be okay. 

   Brandon hummed to himself as he skipped along up ahead, and Bones indulged in peeing on as many trees, flowers, rocks and twigs as he liked.  This allowed Draco to remain quiet as they made their way through the forest, thinking how strange it was that he was in this position after the couple of years he’d had.

   Well, it was obviously strange he was in some crazy universe made up of different holidays where they stole people’s memories and animals could talk and he was being chased by an army of skeletons.  But that wasn’t really what he was thinking about. 

   It was more how up in the real world, after all the misery Voldemort had put him through (and, admittedly, Harry more so) the two of them had finally started becoming tentative friends.  After seven frustrating years, he was finally getting his wish to be closer to Harry.  He had realised somewhere over the last summer, when he had enjoyed a few refreshing months of not thinking he was going to be murdered at every turn, that he’d gone about getting Harry’s attention in all the worst ways possible over the years.  It had been like watching a slow-motion car crash, unable to stop the carnage even though he knew it was humiliating and fruitless.  But now, thankfully, Harry was seemingly open to this new version of himself Draco was forging, and it gave him hope for the future.

   Not that he thought he’d ever get anywhere with his abysmal crush of course, but that he might be able to call Harry ‘friend’ one day.  That would make it all worth it. 

   But first that meant finding him, restoring his memories, and getting them both back to the real world before the stroke of midnight.  He sighed, at least he wasn’t alone. 

   “So,” he said, forcibly cheering up and strolling over to Bones, hands in his pockets.  “Are we going to talk about the little leprechaun outfit?”

   “No,” grumbled Bones.

   Draco smirked.  “I think it’s adorable.”

   “Say that again,” the small dog warned.  “And I’ll bite your ankles.”

   Draco just laughed.

   They passed several more leprechauns as they trekked through the woods, most of them chasing snakes, all of them waving tankards around in varying states of inebriation.  But they mostly paid the odd trio no mind as they marched along the pathway, more interested in their quarry than what a boy, a dog and a drunken imp were up to. 

   Just as Draco was starting to get antsy, the edge of the tree line came into view, and they were greeted by a wide open meadow rolling down a hill, showing a small town in the distance that Draco guessed to be their destination.  The meadow was filled with three-leaf clovers rather than grass, and Draco plucked one of the shamrocks from its stem to roll absently between his fingers. 

   He figured the chances of Harry making his way to St Patrick’s Land would probably be quite an unlikely coincidence, so he figured they would most likely ask around to whoever might know about these things just to double check, then head on up to Christmas Land.  His belly rumbled at the thought of mince pies, and he hoped they would have a chance to grab a snack along the way.  Harry-hunting would be much less stressful on a full stomach. 

   As they walked down the hill towards the edge of the town they passed a harangued looking young man and woman, human like Draco, as they attempted to instruct a dozen or so children who were currently charging around in what might generously be called a circle.  “No,” pleaded the woman, pulling at her red hair and moving as fast as she could with them in her voluminous skirts.  “Two steps forward, two steps back – the other way – the _other way!”_

   The children looked to be having too much fun to really be listening to her though, and the man had his hands full with the drum he was banging in time to their instruction.  Draco and his companions walked on by without so much as a glance from any of them. 

   The town was made up of a series of rambling houses that lead up to a sheer cliff face overlooking the sea.  It was a beautiful vista and Draco breathed deep, taking in the salt air.  The buildings themselves were mostly made up of large grey stones with slated roofs and big rectangular windows.  As they drew closer and entered the town itself, Draco assumed that the homes were further out from the main street they were walking along, as every single establishment that currently lined the street seemed to be a pub. 

   “Top of the morning to yeh,” several people cried out as they waved from their windows, and numerous leprechauns scampered from door to door, chuckling wickedly with brimming tankards clutched to their chests. 

   “Are you taking us to Tommy’s?” Bones asked.  That meant nothing to Draco, but it obviously did to him and to Brandon as well, as he nodded and swung his now empty mug around. 

   “He’ll be able to help yeh out, and then I’ll get me gold, yes?”

   Draco sighed, not really enjoying the deception, even though it was necessary.  Actually, what was bothering him was not _having_ the money at all.  He felt quite naked without a sizable amount of cash upon his person.  One never knew when a good bribe would be needed, as this experience had shown him clearly, and he wasn’t appreciating the sense of powerlessness it was giving him.

   Tommy’s turned out to be a pub (much to Draco’s surprise) called _“The Old Craic”,_ which Draco was quickly informed was pronounced ‘crack’ a word which meant ‘good times’, lest there be any confusion.  The inside was dark and a bit squashed with so many mismatched tables and chairs crowded around the hearth, but Draco felt a warm, welcoming sensation envelope him as soon as he stepped over the threshold, and couldn’t help but smile.  There were a number of people and leprechauns occupying the seats, and a broad man in a flat cap behind the bar greeted them with a cheery wave as he polished a pint glass. 

   “Bones me old chap,” he cried merrily.  “It’s been too long, what brings you to this neck of the woods?  Come, come, sit down and bring your friend.”

   “The usual!” Brandon hiccupped, climbing up the leg of a bar stool to stand on the seat and rest against the counter.  He dropped his empty tankard in front of him as well as a shiny gold coin. 

   “The usual useless layabout, I assume you mean?” the barkeep chuckled as Draco walked up to him and lifted Bones so he could sit on a stool too.  “Catch any snakes today?”

   “Three,” Brandon announced proudly, then edged the tankard closer to the taps in a not so subtle hint. 

   “Yer a lying bastard, Brandon O’Charm,” the man said, shaking his head, but filling up the cup regardless.  “Now, who do we have here?  Tommy O’Shea,” he introduced himself to Draco, sticking out his large, calloused hand. 

   “Um,” said Draco as he took it, not sure if he should give his name considering he had a whole army of the undead after him. 

   Bones obviously felt the same though, as he propped his front paws on the bar to address Tommy himself.  “You don’t have anyone,” he said meaningfully.  “He’s in a spot of bother from up above, so the less you know, the better.”

   Tommy laughed and tipped his hat.  “You don’t need to tell me twice,” he assured them.  “Right then so, is there anything you’re in fact wanting, or are you just here for the good stuff?”  He waved the now clean glass their way. 

   “I’m looking for my friend,” Draco said clearly.  There wasn’t much of a din from the pub’s patrons, but it wasn’t exactly quiet either.  “I think he’s in Christmas Land, but he might have left there by now.  His name’s Harry, and he had a scar shaped like a lightning bolt on his forehead.”

   Brandon gave a particularly loud belch, then held out his tankard again, already empty.  “He’s a trouble maker, I can tell,” he said with a frown.

   “No he’s not,” Draco defended hotly.  “He’s just…a bit lost.”

   Tommy plucked the cup from the leprechaun’s hands and filled it automatically.  “Well,” he said thoughtfully.  “I’ve not seen anyone by that description, but there were folks from Christmas Land around here, not twenty minutes ago.” 

   Draco felt a thrill of hope fly through him and he leaned forward on the bar.  “Really?”

   “Yep,” said Tommy with a nod, finding another glass to clean.  “A bunch of robins, all harping on about some boy.  Actually,” he narrowed his eyes and gave Draco a closer look.  “It was a blond fellow they were after, with silver eyes.  I asked for something useful like a name, but you know what those Christmas ding-dongs are like, hard to get a straight answer before they start bursting into song every two seconds.”

   “Did they say why they were searching for a blond boy?” Draco asked, his pulse quickening. 

   “Aye,” Tommy replied with a smile.  “Said their friend was trying to find him.  Nothing more than that, but seems to me that could be you laddie?”

   A wave of dizziness swept over him, but Draco clung to the bar and stayed upright.  “Could be?” he agreed optimistically, raising his eyebrows at Bones.  Did that mean Harry still remembered who he was, what had happened to him? 

   _Oh please, please,_ Draco begged silently.  If Harry was aware, that meant he could fend for himself.  Of the two of them, there was most definitely one who was far better qualified for heroics, and it made Draco incredibly relieved to think it perhaps wasn’t just down to him to get them home. 

   “So he _is_ in Christmas Land?” he enquired happily.

   Tommy frowned.  “Actually, no,” he said apologetically.  “I don’t think so.  Pretty sure they said he was off trying to find you himself, so he’s probably in another second level holiday by now.”

   “Or third,” Bones said with a sigh. 

   So, anywhere.  Draco’s brief flash of hope fizzled out as his heart clenched.  It was hard not to resent Harry for making him worry like he was.  It was a deep, churning ache that made Draco’s throat constrict as he imagined all the many lands Harry could have travelled to, and how improbable is was that he could possibly hope to find him.  At least, if he had maybe remembered who he really was, he might have a better chance, but did he know he had until midnight to escape back to the real world? 

   He wasn’t used to caring about people like this.  It felt like he’d been in constant fear for his parents that past two years, and in the moments when his fierce disassociation had cracked, he’d worried himself silly over Pansy and Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle, even Theo, who he’d never been all that close to but still would have minded if he’d been slaughtered in the mindless violence like so many others.  But now his life had returned to ‘normal’, it was almost more than he could bear to fret over Harry’s well being like he was. 

   Draco couldn’t lose him now, he just couldn’t.  They had only just begun connecting, finding a path towards one another that wasn’t fraught with bitterness and animosity.  He knew he could never _be_ with Harry, he was straight after all, and even if he wasn’t, The Boy Who Lived would never fall for an ex-death eater.  He had (almost) come to terms with that fact.  But if Harry stayed down here, he would to all intents and purposes _die,_ and Draco was too selfish a creature to ever let that happen whilst it was within his power to stop it. 

   Even if Harry didn’t love him back, he would at least still be alive in the world, the real world.  Draco would never forget as long as he lived that heart-wrenching few minutes outside of the castle back in May, when Harry’s lifeless body had hung limply from the games keeper’s arms, and Draco had thought everything was truly lost.  Harry hadn’t survived the worst wizard to have ever lived, only to lose himself to bloody Christmas Land. 

   He inhaled and gave a decisive nod, focusing on his goal with grim determination.  “Well, we know more than we did before,” he said firmly.  “What do you think?  Is it worth searching the higher level first, or going down to the third to come back up to another second?”  He felt like he was starting to get the hang of this place now, even if it did all sound rather bizarre to say it out loud.  “There are only three levels, right?”  But even as he said it, something niggled in his faux-Halloween memories, and he didn’t miss the way Bones and Tommy swapped apprehensive glances.  “Right?” he said a little more forcefully. 

   Tommy and Bones regarded each other as Brandon drained another tankard.  “Well-” Bones began. 

   The door to the pub crashed open.  “Tommy!” cried a boy around Draco’s age.  His eyes were wide with panic as he quickly sought out the barkeep.

   “Martin?” Tommy said, coming around the Draco’s side of the bar.  The boy Martin was still holding the door open, and Draco blinked.  Surely it had been much sunnier when they had come in only a few minutes ago?  “What is it lad?”

   Martin shook his head and pointed outside.  “Not sure.  The Guard is out already, but, well, I thought…”

   Tommy allowed himself to be lead out into the street without further explanation.  A chill ran over Draco’s skin and he thought it best to see what was going on as well, so he wordlessly lifted Bones down from his perch, and the two of them joined several other curious drinkers in wandering out of the pub. 

   A mist had descended from the hill, bringing an unnatural gloom to the day, and a few dozen other people were also coming out into the street to inspect the disturbance.  From the left of where Draco was standing, the direction of the Cliffside, a line of men and women were streaming out of the only building not concerned primarily with serving alcohol – the police station.  Although they didn’t look like any police or Aurors Draco had ever seen. 

   The men were dressed in black trousers with emerald green silk shirts tucked in at the waist, one too many buttons undone at the collar.  The women wore short dresses in a matching shade of green, cut off the shoulder with long sleeves, black tights and heeled ankle boots that tapped against the cobblestones as they marched purposefully towards the mist that was slowly but surely rolling down the road. 

   Through the fog ran the two dance instructors and their hoard of children, as well as a throng of leprechauns intermixed with all kinds of woodland creatures, including the elusive snakes, although no one seemed interested in catching them at present, everyone was too concerned with outrunning the phenomenon. 

   The temperature had dropped, and Draco rubbed his arms.  “What’s going on?” he asked. 

   The people in black and green from the police station began lining themselves up across the width of the street, alternating men and women one after the other.  As they took their positions they all linked hands facing forwards, and once a row was completed the dozen or so of them would move in unison, crossing their legs at their ankles, causing sparks to fly from their shoes.

   “Oh holy hell,” breathed Tommy as another line completed.  “The Guard’s out, there must be real trouble.”

   The cold feeling that had washed over Draco’s skin seemed to intensify.  “I think I might be able to guess what it is,” he said through dry lips. 

   As if summoned by his words, the edge of the mist several feet from where they were standing shifted, and through the swirling smoke emerged an all too familiar sight. 

   The first line of the Guard was met by almost as many gruesome walking skeletons, now all brandishing an array of wicked looking blades.  Draco gasped as the Guard didn’t hesitate; still holding hands, their feet moved in a flurry of kicks and stamps, casting showers of sparks as golden light rose between them and the skeletons in a protective wall, stopping them from advancing any further.

   That was all Draco got to see, as at that moment Tommy grabbed him by the scuff of his neck, and with Bones at their feet hauled him back inside the pub and slammed the door.

   Several patrons were still sat at their tables, peering curiously towards the windows, but not pushed so far as to leave their drinks.  Brandon had scrambled up onto the bar itself, and was now happily sitting under the tap of ale, gulping it directly down in noisy slurps. 

   Tommy was a big man, but not so large Draco felt overtly intimidated by him.  However, as he loomed over him by the closed door, his shoulders several inches wider than Draco’s own, he seemed quite menacing indeed.  “What the _bejeezus?”_ he demanded, thrusting a meaty finger towards the closed door.  “That’s Mayor Abattoir’s private squadron, the HS bloody P!  Just what have you gotten yourself into boy?”

   “How do you know they’re here for him?” Bones asked, but Tommy was having none of it.

   “Because I wasn’t born yesterday, you idjit!”  He scowled and advanced on Draco, making him take a step back.  Outside there were shouts and the crackle of lightning and a host of other unidentifiable sounds tearing through the air.  “What trouble have you brought down upon us?”

   Everyone was looking at Draco now.  “I’m so sorry,” he said, raising his hands as bile rose in his throat.  After everything that had happened at Hogwarts, the last thing he had wanted to do was cause any more problems for innocent people. 

   “Don’t be sorry,” Tommy snapped.  “Explain!  What did you do?”

   “Nothing, I swear,” Draco stammered.  This was awful, he could feel panic making his heart slam into his chest.  He was going to get people killed, _again._   “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident-”

   “No, no,” interrupted Bones sternly.  “Tommy, stop, this isn’t what you think.”

   “Then what is it?” Tommy shot back as the noises outside intensified. 

   Bones locked eyes with him.  “He’s trying to leave,” he said simply. 

   Tommy frowned at him for a moment, before his eyes slowly widened.  He looked up to the ceiling.  “You mean… _leave_ leave?”

   Bones nodded, ignoring the commotion coming through the walls.  At least it didn’t look like the mayor was with them, Draco thought, but if he was somewhere else, did that mean he’d sent his skeletons to more than one land?  Did he want to stop Draco that badly? 

   “He don’t belong here, Tommy,” said Bones gravely.  “And I’ve only got a few hours to find his friend and send him home, otherwise he’ll be lost, just like the rest of them.” 

   Tommy puffed up his chest.  “Say no more,” he told them.  “You’d best be going down in that case – far more lands to lose them in that way.  You know where the cellar is, get on with yeh, and we’ll make sure they don’t come a following.”

   Draco shook his head, not quite sure he understood.  “Why are you helping us?  Me?” he asked.  “What’s in it for you?”

   Tommy scoffed, and straightened the woollen waistcoat he had on over his shirt.  “T’ain’t about that,” he said, clapping Draco on the shoulder.  “It’s about what’s right and wrong.  Go, find yer lad and get yerselves home.  We’ll make sure nobody follows yeh.”  He gave Draco a squeeze then let him go to address the rest of the pub.  “Alright ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have ourselves a _lock in!”_  

   A mighty cheer rang out and the customers leapt to their feet, bellowing and screaming in feral delight. 

   Draco took a step closer to Bones. 

   Several people launched towards the door, dropping a hefty wooden bar across it and turning a number of different shaped keys along the side.  A middle aged lady pulled a fiddle out from in between her legs under her many layered skirts, and started to play a wild jig.  One bloke lifted a small shutter at the base of the pub wall, and no less than nine chickens came strutting out, followed by a parakeet and cockatoo, both of whom looked extremely disturbed and disorientated to be on the floor of _The Old Craic_ , but, like most everyone within the walls at present, decided it was best just to accept the situation and embrace it.  

   A dwarf woman skipped over the backs of the chairs and sofas, merrily relighting the candles hanging on the walls with a black stick of wax whose flame glowed an eerie green that made Draco feel oddly at home.  Several leprechauns started shelling and salting a variety of nuts into bowls at an alarming rate.   Two young ladies initiated a game of Pictionary whilst two young gents cracked open an accordion case and launched right in with the fiddle’s jaunty tune. 

   A plump lady with rosy cheeks laid on her rolly-polly belly and tugged a battered old game of snakes and ladders from underneath one of the tables, flicking the board out for those around her to join in.  It took less than twenty seconds, as far as Draco’s fleeting eye could tell, before drinking rules had been established, and the first pair of dice had been cast to a ruckus applause. 

   Where Tommy had vacated from behind the bar, half a dozen other people now filled his place, yanking down the arms on the pumps to slosh beer into the glasses hastily shoved underneath the streams.  Corks were popped and tabs were pulled, drinks of every colour flowing into whatever vessels could be found.  One chap had even set himself up at the end of the bar with an assortment of coloured bottles and was contentedly making fruity cocktails garnished with little umbrellas, humming along to the jig whose lyrics were becoming more and more explicit. 

   “Nobody in their right minds’ll be trying to get past this lot,” Tommy said affectionately as several couples linked arms and began to swing around the furniture.  “Now go, before anyone sees you through the windows.” 

   Draco’s feet seemed routed to the spot.  He’d already asked why this totally stranger was helping him, and he still didn’t understand.  But maybe he didn’t need to just then.  “Th-thank you.”

   “There’ll be time later for getting all mushy Sunshine,” Bones growled, nipping at the hem of his trousers.  “Down the stairs, now!”

   Draco took one last look at the rowdy horde, then quickly made his way down the bar towards the door stood ajar that Tommy indicated led to the cellar.  Yet again he wasn’t thrilled about heading down into a dark space, but he didn’t want the skeletons finding him either. 

   “Oi!” a little voice cut through the hubbub, and Draco turned as he reached the door to see Brandon join Bones at his feet.  He was weaving back and forth on his feet like he was on board a ship atop choppy waters, and in place of his small tankard he now brandished a human sized hip flask.  “Just where do you think you’re going?”

   Draco huffed, pulling the door open and heading down the stairs which, this time, were mercifully lit.  “We told you, to find my friend,” he snapped impatiently.  “So that’s means getting out of here before those _things_ out there spot us.”

   “But what about me gold?” Brandon hiccupped sulkily, keeping up with Draco’s strides despite almost tripping over every step.  “Me treasure, me _reward?_   Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that!” 

   Draco let out a rumbling noise of frustration.  “Look, we’ll sort that out later, alright?” he lied.  But the leprechaun happily skipped ahead of him to reach the cellar floor fist, unperturbed.  

   “It’s okay, I’ll stick with you, would hate for you to forget any such thing.”  He grinned drunkenly, and swung off of the tap of the nearest of the many beer barrels lined up along the wall.  “So where too now, what land?”

   The door above them gave a violent shudder, and a fine rain of dust drifted down over their heads.

   “Wherever’s closest,” Bones said urgently, and ran over to a trap door.  “Quick, boy, get this open.”

   “So we’re going down?” he checked as his did as the dog said.  “Aren’t we just guessing blindly here?  Harry could be anywhere.”

   “Well we know he’s not here,” Bones growled.  “Unless you’ve got any other bright ideas, we’re better off seeing where the portal takes us, ideally away from the bloody HSP.”

   Draco wrapped his hands around the cold metal ring that would pull the heavy square of wood upwards, and winced as another thud came from above them.  “Can’t we control it in anyway?” he asked.

   Brandon scampered over to where Draco’s knee rested on the flagstone floor, and gave it a poke with the top of his hipflask.  “Course you can,” he chided.  “You just need a bit a practice.  Why don’t you let me guide you down?”

   Draco raised his gaze towards Bones, who in turn looked back at the leprechaun waggling his eyebrows provocatively.  “Ah,” said the dog.  “I guess we can’t get much more screwed than we already are.  Go on then, quickly.”

   “Should we maybe,” Draco said as he wrenched the trapdoor upwards.  “Think about going down two levels at once, to throw them off?” 

   He’d suspected there were more than three levels after Bones and Tommy’s reaction up in the pub, but he still wasn’t prepared for the panicked “NO!” that both Bones and Brandon shot at him, their eyes going wide.

   “No?” Draco repeated.  “Why ‘no’?”

   “Look,” Bones said gruffly, checking no one had as yet followed them down into the cellar.  “You’re right, there’s a fourth level, but it’s not like this, or the first or third either.  You don’t ever want to find yourself down there, okay?”  He darted over to the edge of the black hole beyond the open trapdoor.  “Just trust me on this, Your Highness.”

   However Draco felt a flair of frustration go through him.  “But if we could lose them down there-”

   “Oh deary me,” Brandon sighed with a roll of his eyes, then pinched his nose and jumped feet first into the void.  Draco’s stomach lurched, but he guessed it was probably just like when they’d gone through the door in the basement. 

   “It ain’t right down there,” Bones said plainly.  “If you ain’t properly anchored you get lost, people never come back.”

   “So, have you seen it yourself?” Draco pressed.

   Bones scoffed, and more bumps and cries came from over their heads.  “Not likely Sunshine,” he scoffed.  “Worth more than my life to go poking about there.  Now come _on._   We’ll never lose them if you sit and gab all day!”

   Draco wasn’t wholly satisfied with his non-answer, but he was also right, they didn’t want to get caught sitting around on the floor, so he swung his legs around into the darkness.  “How do I follow Brandon?” he asked as Bones hopped into his lap.

   Bones shook his head, dislodging the ridiculous miniature top hat, then jutted his chin forwards towards the portal.  “Just picture the little bugger, and we’ll take the same path as he did.”

   Draco wasn’t sure he was entirely convinced, but the door to the cellar rattled alarmingly, and he decided to take his chances.

   “Okay, here we go!” he announced, slipping off the edge of the trapdoor hole and plummeting into oblivion. 

 


	11. XI

 

   Hermione closed the door to the hospital wing quietly, her heart heavy in her chest.  There had been no change in Harry or Malfoy’s condition whatsoever, and whilst it was good they hadn’t deteriorated, she was deeply worried about why they weren’t waking up still, and what was really going on in their minds.

   The Healers had done more thorough scans whilst she, Ron and Pansy had been in the forest, and confirmed what they had already suspected about their brains being active as if they were awake.  But other than that all they were doing now was keeping them comfortable whilst they ran more tests, and Hermione couldn’t say she was overly hopeful. 

   She was however feeling a little bit more optimistic after a trip to the library – as always, she found the possibility of the answers it could offer deeply comforting.  She patted her trusty purse on her hip reassuringly, and trotted back down the stairs to head for the school’s main entrance. 

   After Ron was almost sucked in by the tree with the vegetables on it, Hermione had decided they needed reinforcements.  It was bad enough Harry was in dire straits; she put her foot down at losing her boyfriend to some mysterious force as well.

   Pansy had wanted to stay out investigating the rings of trees, so Hermione had suggested the two of them start cataloguing the images seeing as they had become more visible.  She was surprised by Pansy’s willingness to comply, but rather than question it she had jogged back up to the castle before she could change her mind, or Ron could protest at being left with her.  He understood though that it was in Harry’s best interest for them both to keep working, and Hermione was proud of him for that. 

   As soon as she had returned and informed McGonagall of what they had discovered, the Headmistress had disappeared immediately with several Aurors in tow to go investigate the spot for themselves, leaving Hermione to collect up the supplies she needed before following after them. 

   As far as she could tell, the student body was still unaware of Harry’s predicament, and he and Malfoy had been sectioned off in the hospital wing so as to avoid any prying eyes.  But that would only last for a little while longer.  People were going to start missing him soon enough, especially if he didn’t show up at dinner.  She sighed; she would hate for a scandal to emerge before they could restore Harry’s health, but honestly the more time went on the less she cared about that.  All she wanted now was for him to wake up, and then she could scold him for making her worry.  Again. 

   The cold air hurt her chest as she once again descended the steps from the castle and began crossing the grass towards the woods.  The same thoughts were still swirling over and over around in her mind, desperate to be answered, but at that moment she still hadn’t deduced anything new, not having had the chance to search through any of the books she’d picked up yet. 

   Why had Harry been out in the dark after the feast, with Draco Malfoy of all people?  Had they found the decorated trees by accident, or had that been their intended destination?  What did the markings mean, and why had they reacted when Ron had got too close with his wand?  What would have happened to him if Pansy hadn’t pulled him away?  Had the same fate befallen Harry, and if so, what was it? 

   Her main worry was how long he and Malfoy could last in their current state.  The Healers and Pomfrey were keeping them nourished and seeing to their bodily needs for now, but that couldn’t be maintained forever. 

   She shuddered and chewed her icy lip as she reached the edge of the forest, following her wand as it guided her back towards Ron, Pansy and presumably by now Headmistress McGonagall.  Things would be better once she could sit and do some research, and she was confident with the books she’d checked out of the library that they would soon have a better grasp of what was going on. 

   Ron and Pansy must have explained the situation to McGonagall and the Aurors on their arrival, as not one single person had a wand out, and all the light in the gloomy forest was coming from regular fire-lit torches jammed into the hard ground.  It was mid-afternoon now, and the sun was already setting, but with the torches Hermione could still see well enough as she reappeared into the glad where most people were milling around.

   “Oh thank goodness,” Ron breathed in relief, and came striding over to her to give her a hug.  “Tell me you brought food?” he muttered into her hair.

   Hermione chuckled.  “Just who do you think you’re talking to?” she replied cheekily.

   Ron drew back and beamed at her.  “Oh I love you,” he mumbled.  Hermione felt her cheeks go pink as she opened up her purse and fished into the much larger space inside to retrieve the platter of sandwiches the kitchen house elves had eagerly prepared for her.  She and Ron were only just getting used to saying the “L” word, and it still brought a flutter to her chest every time. 

   “If I tell you I love you,” a murmur came to her ear from behind.  “Do I get fed too?”

   Hermione spun around to see Pansy smiling wolfishly at her.  “Um,” she stammered.  “I uh, yes, there’s more food.”

   Pansy smirked and watched her as she rummaged around in her bag again, feeling her way through the contents to find what she was looking for.  “The elves said this was your favourite,” she said, pulling out a thermos of noodle soup that had smelled beautiful when they’d decanted it from the pan. 

   Pansy’s eyebrows lifted as she plucked the container from Hermione’s grasp.  “You asked for my favourite?” she enquired.  Hermione wasn’t sure why that made her squirm the way it did. 

   “It, uh, seemed the polite thing to do.”

   Pansy left her alone after that, taking her thermos and her notepad as she moved further away to sketch the various different images on the trees.  “What was that about,” Ron asked, coming back to her side with half the sandwiches on his plate already gone.  He rubbed the small of her back and she automatically melted against him.

   “No idea,” she admitted with a laugh.  “Slytherins?”

   “Slytherins,” Ron agreed. 

   McGonagall was leading the half a dozen or so Aurors around the area, but when she spotted Hermione sitting herself down in the centre of the clearing and spreading her books out, she came over to investigate.  “Ms Granger,” she said as she knelt down to sit beside her.  “Have you found anything useful?” 

   Hermione sighed and swallowed the hot bite of Cornish pasty she’d been chewing on.  “I think I have a good start,” she said, picking up one of the books.  “Did Ron mention I thought the pictures drawn on the tree bark might represent different holidays?”

   McGonagall nodded.  “He did, and I’m inclined to agree.”

   “Well,” Hermione continued.  “Starting with that, I checked these out from the library; this one simply lists all holidays celebrated in the United Kingdom, but it’s a self-revising one, so it should be completely up to date.  And then these-” she indicated several other books “-are all about how magic relates to holidays, the mythology behind several prominent ones, and any holiday related disturbances.  There’s a whole volume dedicated to Valentine’s Day, although I suspect that has more to do with the jealousy and obsessions of love-crazy people involved rather than any enchanted trees.”

   “Quite,” said McGonagall, picking up the book in question and eyeing up the cover of a satyr scampering after a flustered looking maiden.  “The Ministry have detected a great deal of power in this area from what they’ve been able to tell without using magic within the immediate vicinity.”  She placed the book back down on the ground and rubbed her gloved hands together.  “Although I don’t see how this could have resulted in Mr Potter and Mr Malfoy’s current state.”

   Hermione shook her head in agreement.  “No, me either,” she muttered, taking another mouthful of pasty and leafing through the catalogue of holiday dates she’d hoped would give her some answers.  “Ah, here we go,” she exclaimed, landing on the page that detailed November 1st.  “The tree that activated near Ron had an image of vegetables on it, which essentially turned into some sort of doorway or vortex when he lit his wand too close to it.  Look.”  She held the book out for her teacher to see. 

   “World Vegan Day,” she read out loud.

   “Ron!” Hermione called to get his attention.  Doing so invariably caught Pansy’s too, and they both made their way back over to see what she had found.

   “Interesting,” said Pansy, nodding thoughtfully.

   Ron frowned.  “What’s a vegan?” he asked.

   “Someone who eats the opposite to you darling,” Hermione said, patting his arm as he read more of the page she was holding open to him.

   “No meat _or_ fish _or_ dairy?” he cried in horror.

   “What an abomination,” Pansy drawled, sipping on her soup some more. 

   “So, this place is basically a bunch of trees linked to holidays, right?” Ron asked, changing the subject away from the horrifying notion of never having a bacon buttie again in his life. 

   McGonagall sniffed and rubbed her hands together.  Her nose was red underneath her abrasive looking deerstalker hat, but she wasn’t shivering or showing any signs of leaving soon.  Hermione felt reassured by her presence.  “So it would seem,” she agreed with Ron.  “With the more widely celebrated holidays in the centre, their popularity waning as the rings go outwards.”

   “Relatively speaking of course,” Hermione said, not pausing from the third page of notes she was scribbling in her workbook.  “I mean culturally – with relation to the UK and Ireland.  Burns Night and St Patrick’s are in the second tier whereas in other countries they’d be in the third.  And if we were in say, America or China for example, they wouldn’t have Bonfire Night here in the first ring, but they’d have Thanksgiving and Spring Festival.”

   “Do you think other countries have these tree things then?” Ron asked.  “Near other magic schools?”

   Hermione shrugged and looked toward McGonagall.  “Maybe?  Perhaps one of the books might shed some light on that?” 

   “Right, well,” said Pansy stiffly. “That’s all very interesting Granger, but _why_ is it here, and how come no one has ever come across this before?”

   She pulled out her own trusty copy of Hogwarts: A History.  “Actually, I was going to see if anyone _had_ come across it before.  Care to take a look?”

   Pansy gave a long-suffering sigh, but took the book regardless and sat herself next to Hermione to read. 

   “There’s a great deal of research that’s been done into the power of belief in relation to the origin of magic,” McGonagall told them, scanning the back of a different book as Hermione pulled another stack out from within her enchanted purse.  “It’s possible these rings were created by how much people in a country celebrate each of the events in question, as if the magic was being channelled by each tree here.”

   “To do what?” Ron asked uneasily. 

   Hermione allowed her stomach to flip in apprehension just the once, before she rallied herself.  “I guess we’re going to have to find that out, aren’t we?” 

 


	12. XII

 

   It turned out Spring Festival Land had a dozen districts, and each one was affiliated with a different animal, which Fan explained each represented a different zodiac in the Chinese calendar.  Harry was pretty chuffed to discover he had been born in the year of the monkey. 

   After joining together to fend off the skeletons, Fan had become a lot less hostile towards him, especially because he was genuinely interested in finding more about her land.  The more she explained her people’s customs, the warmer and friendlier she got, until finally she and Harry swapped hot, tasty dumplings for candy canes and mince pies, and from the appreciative noises of contentment they both made it seemed they were now officially friends. 

   They passed through several streets that were first adorned with depictions of horses, then goats, then finally rabbits.  “This is the one we want,” Rocky announced, taking them down an ally and away from the main bustle of the street.  There were fields on the outskirts of the town, and Rocky zipped ahead to land beside a hole in the dirt. 

   “What’s that?” Harry asked, eyeing it up with even more distrust than he had the chimney back in Christmas Land.

   “Rabbit warren,” said Rocky proudly. 

   “We’re not going to fit down there,” Fan said dubiously, but Harry was already shaking his head.

   “Don’t worry,” he assured her despite his own reservations.  “I don’t think it really works like that.”

   “Then how does it work?” she asked, creeping closer.  “Holding your breath and thinking skinny thoughts?”

   Rocky laughed.  He obviously had nothing to worry about.  “Don’t worry,” he said, flying up to sit on her shoulder.  “I’ll go first and activate it, see if I can’t take us to a fun land.”

   “And we’ll definitely follow after you?” she asked back.  Harry was secretly glad he wasn’t the only one with questions about this stuff.  It seemed Fan hadn’t travelled between lands before either.  “We won’t go somewhere random?”

   “Just concentrate on me and the portal will do the rest,” Rocky told them as Harry looked back down at the entrance to the warren.  Had it been that dark before? 

   He didn’t get a chance to think much more on it, as Rocky dove from Fan’s shoulder and plummeted through the hole.  “Okay,” he said heavily.  “I’ll go next – unless you want to?”

   “I’ll follow you,” she said thoughtfully, not taking her eyes off the hole. 

   Harry sat down and, like before, swung his legs around to drop them down the opening.  He found it helped if he didn’t really look at what he was doing.  “Okay,” he said decisively.  “Here we go.”

   He squeezed his eyes shut and dropped.  He inhaled sharply as he felt that same pause, as if gravity had changed its mind for a fraction of a second, before he fell once again, landing heavily in the dark. 

   “Ow,” he said.

   “Are you okay?” Rocky asked.

   “Yeah, I just-”  He only thought about rolling away just in time.  He shoved himself and his bindle to the left, a moment before Fan dropped in a heap of limbs beside him.  “It’s a bit of a sudden landing,” he finished telling Rocky. 

   “Ouch,” moaned Fan as she sat upright and rubbed her elbow.

   They may have been in the dark, but Harry realised there was a small amount of light to see by; enough to work out they were in some sort of cupboard or service hatch with wires crisscrossing all around them, and that the illumination was actually coming from a square below them. 

   “Where are we?” Harry asked.

   Rocky pointed at the sliver of light by Harry’s knees.  “Only one way to find out,” he suggested, and Harry shrugged in agreement. 

   Without thinking he pushed against the hatch to test its resilience…and it came away easily, once again depositing him and Fan unkindly onto the floor several feet below.  “If this is what it’s like visiting other lands,” Fan snapped, squeezing tears from her eyes and rubbing her back as well as her elbow.  “No wonder everyone bloody stays at home.” 

   “It’s not always so violent,” Rocky said dismissively, having flown his way down quite happily. 

   They were in a corridor of sorts.  The floor was black with metal grating and the walls and ceiling were circular, like a tube and they were sitting on the flattened bottom.  White panels formed rings every few feet along the hall, but they were going a greyish-cream with age and neglect, and several were hanging open with their circuitry poking lose.  The floor was littered with nuts and bolts as well as mechanical tools and scraps of metal.  There looked to be a couple of scorch marks along the wall, and Harry shuddered.

   It was so grey and dull compared to the frivolity of Christmas Land, and he couldn’t fathom where they might have found themselves.  Rocky though, seemed pretty excited.  “Oh boy oh boy oh boy!” he cried as he flew in fervent circles.  “Come on, let’s find a way out of here.”  And he was gone, disappearing out of sight before Harry could ask where ‘here’ was, so he and Fan scrambled to their feet and hurried to follow him.  “Come on, open it up,” Rocky begged like a child on Christmas morning as he zipped back and forth in front of a closed door that presumably lead outside. 

   “Alright, calm down,” Harry told him with a chuckle.  In truth, it was a nice change to the day to have someone just be happy rather than scared or confused.  He wasn’t really sure what to do, but after pushing a few buttons there was a hiss, but instead of opening on the left or right like a regular door, the top cracked open and away from them, lowering to form a ramp. 

   Rocky was out into the brilliant sunshine as soon as the gap was big enough, but Harry and Fan had to wait until it was lowered all the way, inviting them into what appeared to be a desert.  “Just what kind of holiday is this, bird?” Fan asked as they wandered out, shielding their eyes from the sun reflecting off the sand. 

   “Look, look, look!” Rocky gushed, pointing back at the place they had just come from with his wing before flying upwards to get a better view.  Harry had assumed it was a building, but as he ventured further into the sand and turned around to take a better look, he gasped. 

   It wasn’t a building.  It was a spaceship. 

   He moved further back, taking in the mostly circular body with two pincer like shapes sticking out from the front and a big exhaust port on the right.  They had been making this very ship in the workshop for over twenty years, it had never gone out of fashion.  “It’s the Millennium Falcon,” he whispered reverently.  

   Fan squinted in confusion at him.  “The what?”

   “The Millennium Falcon, Rocky, where in all the Lands are we?”

   Rocky had been doing summersaults over the top of the ship, which Harry could now see was lopsided in the sand dune.  Like the inside there were a great number of scorch marks blemishing the outer hull, and several gaps where there really ought to have been more things stopping the outside reaching the inside. 

   “It doesn’t look like a bird,” Fan pushed on, and Harry laughed.  The air was hot and dry, and he coughed several times before answering. 

   “No,” he explained.  “That’s just its name, it’s from a film.  But I don’t know why a film would have its own land.  Rocky!”

   Finally Rocky calmed down enough to fly back over to them.  “Isn’t this great?” he cried as he landed on Harry’s shoulder. 

   Harry looked around them.  Other than the ship and the desert, all he could see were a few other battered looking crafts sitting in the sand as forlornly as the Falcon was, and what might have been a small town in the shimmering distance.  “Err,” he said.

   “This is just a bit of it, of course,” Rocky went on hastily, not seeming to have noticed Harry’s hesitation.  “But I’ve never managed to get here before.  Wonder why it worked this time?”  Before Harry could answer again, he was off, heading towards the town.  “Come on, come on!” he shouted back to him and Fan.  “We need to go see if they’ve heard anything about your mystery boy!”

   Harry glanced at Fan, who shrugged her shoulders.  “At least he’s excited,” she said, and he had to agree. 

   They marched through the burning sand, Harry’s bindle swinging over his shoulder as he adjusted the stick.  He was impressed that the handkerchief has stayed tied, and he looked forward to maybe having some more of the food later if they got a chance to stop. 

   “Harry, you know about Star Wars, right?” Rocky asked as he came flying back over his head.  “How they say _“May the force be with you”?_

   Harry raised his eyebrows.  “Um, yes,” he said.  They had made plenty of toys that spoke those words when you pressed the right button.  In fact, his dissertation project had been on plastic lightsabres, one of which had used that very quote.  He’d got a 2:1 for that. 

   “So,” Rocky continued.  “Seeing as there’s a May 4th, people decided to make that Star Wars day, make sense?”

   “Why May-” Fan began, but Harry groaned over her.

   “May the _fourth_ be with you,” he said shaking his head.  “Alright, that’s pretty clever.” 

   Harry watched as Fan brushed some sand from where it had blown on her red tunic, looking around with an unimpressed expression on her face as they approached the few structures that passed for buildings in the town.  Most were just sticks driven into the sand with material tied at the corners to form a sort of canopy over the top.  Underneath people were sifting through an inordinate amount of unidentifiable junk, washing twisted bits of metal and polishing cogs of every size. 

   He called them people, but not everyone looked human.  Some of them were squishy looking with all manner of different skin colours, and some were robots, repeating the same actions over and over in their unimaginative way.  Aliens and droids.  Harry couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  Wait until he told Joe and Bobby about this. 

   “It’s not much, is it?” Fan said, careful not to start touching anything as they made their way through the makeshift aisles between the stalls. 

   Rocky scoffed.  “And you gave Harry a hard time about not appreciating your holiday enough?”

   Fan’s cheeks went pink, and she tucked her hair behind her ears as she grimaced.  “Oh, yeah,” she said sheepishly.  “Sorry.”

   Rocky shrugged, landing on a currently unoccupied station.  “Nah, don’t worry about it.  This isn’t the most impressive part of the land I’m sure.”

   Something bashed into Harry’s leg, and he snapped his head down in surprise.  There was a small droid that had rolled through the sand over to them, and now it was looking up at Harry expectantly.  “Hello?” he said.

   The droid looked a little like a snowman with a smaller half-ball shape on top of a full-ball to create its body.  He had a wonky antennae and circular orange markings on its main body, as well as a main black orb on the top part that looked like a sort of eye.  It rolled backwards to regard Harry and his friends.

   “Um, can we help?”

   The droid rattled off a series of beeps that Harry frowned at.  Was he supposed to respond to that? 

   “Good day to you too,” Rocky said with a tilt of his head. 

   “You understood it?” Harry said in surprise.  He was rewarded with another bash to the leg that made him jump back.  “Ow, watch it,” he said irritably, scowling down at the droid.  It wasn’t one he recognised from the production line, it must be a background character or something.

   Rocky hooted out a laugh as the droid let out another string of offended sounding bleeps.  “BB8 says don’t be so rude, he can hear you, you know?” 

   Harry exchanged a wary glance with Fan, before addressing the feisty little droid again.  “Sorry,” he said, remembering his manners.  “Nice to meet you BB8, I’m Harry, and this is Fan and Rocky.  We’re, um, just visiting.”

   “We’re on a quest,” said Fan excitedly, bunching up her fists.

   Rocky nodded sagely.  “A quest of true love.”

   Harry scuffed his toe through the sand.  “I really wish people would stop saying that,” he mumbled, feeling the heat rise up his neck.  “We don’t know it’s that, I just had a silly dream.”

   “A nightmare,” Rocky corrected, his tone becoming grave.  “Nightmares are serious business in Christmas Land Harry, you know that.” 

   He only knew it because every else had told him so, and that was still bothering him.  He jammed his bindle stick into the sand and dropped on to a vacant stool by the workstation Rocky was perched on, taking his glasses from his face and wiping the dust off them.  The other people around them were largely ignoring them, but Harry was hot from the sunshine beating down, and it was like there was a spotlight shining over his head.  What would these hard working folks think if they knew of his frivolous little trip?  “I don’t even remember him properly,” he protested as he put his glasses back on.  “Or at all.”

   “But you know he’s real now,” Fan jumped in.  “His face was all over those wanted posters.”

   “Exactly,” said Harry feeling despondent again.  “I know what you said Rocky, but what if he’s really no good? What if he’s some sort of terrible outlaw that I imagined I met?”

   BB8 bleeped at Rocky.  “I know,” said the robin.  “It’s all a bit complicated, but basically Harry had a nightmare that a boy he loved was in danger, and when we ventured out into the lands to find him, we discovered the HSP were after him.  Which means,” he added pointedly.  “That Harry was right.  He _is_ in danger and we need to find him.” 

   “We know he’s no longer in Halloween Land, thank goodness,” Fan added.  “Otherwise they wouldn’t be looking for him elsewhere.”

   “But it’s likely he _started_ in Halloween Land,” Harry protested.  “And everyone says Halloween Land is full of trouble; bad people that are no good.”

   Fan shrugged.  “Their job is to _scare_ people once a year,” she apologetically. 

   Harry shook his head.  “This is ridiculous,” he said.  “Those skeletons might start hurting people if they don’t find him soon.  Why am I being stupid and adding fuel to the fire?”  His shoulders slumped, and he scrubbed his hand over his face.  “I should just go home.”

   “What?” said Fan in surprise. 

   Rocky blew a raspberry.  “Nonsense, you can’t give up now.”

   “Rocky,” Harry said tiredly.  He looked around the work camp again.  These people, and even the aliens beside them, looked tired and hungry.  He came from a holiday where there was always scrumptious food to eat, cheery friends to while away the hours with, and everything they did was geared towards the happy, hopeful celebration of Christmas.  He should just be grateful for what he had, and head on home.  “This is stupid,” he said.  “I’m behaving pathetically.  He probably doesn’t even know who I am, it’s probably – urgh!”  He threw his hands in the air.  “Some magic spell gone wrong, that’s why I had the dream.  They have witches over there, right?” 

   The word ‘witches’ jolted something in him though – as soon as he said it – it was the strangest thing.  It didn’t make him think of old hags with warty noses, the likes of which he knew resided in Halloween Land.  He immediately thought of a young lady with light brown skin and an enormous amount of bushy hair, toiling over a cauldron and flicking through a spell book.  The image…comforted him, and he had no idea why.  Was it a story he had once read, or perhaps a present he had once worked on? 

   BB8 twittered.  “That’s a good point,” agreed Rocky.  “If so, why would anyone go to such trouble Harry?  You’ve never been to Halloween Land, it’s not like anyone over there has a grudge against you, do they?” 

   “That I know of,” Harry admitted reluctantly. 

   Rocky nodded, with only a slight hint of exasperation.  “So why trick you with a nightmare?” 

   “Harry,” said Fan gently, stepping over to him and cautiously reaching out to take his hand.  He didn’t resist, so she cradled it between both of hers.  “Don’t you _want_ to find him?” 

   A flare of pain shot through Harry’s chest at the idea of not finding him, his fantasy boy.  Of truly abandoning his mission and never seeing that face from the posters in real life.  How could he carry on, without finding out for sure what there was between them?  “Desperately,” he admitted to Fan thickly, looking at their entwined fingers.

   BB8 bleeped and nudged Harry’s shin lightly.  “Yeah,” said Rocky.  “So what gives?  Why wouldn’t you want to keep looking for him, what have you got to lose?”

   Harry licked his lips, searching inside for the answer.  It loomed in front of him before he could really question it.  “I’m scared.”

   Fan leaned back in surprise.  “Really?” she said, flummoxed.  “Because you were willing to take on those armed skeletons with nothing more than a wooden stick.”  She tapped the bindle in the sand with her toe.  “That seemed pretty brave to me.”

   Harry let out a mirthless laugh.  “Not like that,” he admitted, then looked at her, Rocky, and even BB8.  The droid wobbled back and forth, giving the impression of a dog wagging its tail in encouragement.  “I, uh…”  He shook his head.  “It’s stupid.”

   “No it’s not,” Fan insisted. 

   So Harry took a breath and spoke before he could change his mind.  “I’m scared he doesn’t even know me, and if he did, why would he like me?”  _Or love me,_ he added silently.  “I’m just a crazy elf who decided to trek through the lands on the off chance we really did know each other.” 

   He stared at his shoes, feeling like the most foolish idiot to ever walk the world. 

   “Well,” said Fan after a few moments pause.  “I can safely say no one’s ever done anything that romantic for me.  How about you guys?”  The bird and the droid shook their heads. 

   Harry laughed ruefully.  “You’re not getting it,” he said, a touch of anger affecting his tone.  “It’s not romantic, it’s madness.  He’s going to think I’m a lunatic.” 

   Rocky shook his head in disbelief and flew over to land on his knee.  “Why are you so pessimistic all of a sudden?” he asked.  “Everybody loves you back home, you’re one of the kindest and friendliest people I know.”

   Harry pulled at the edge of his green tunic, not willing to meet anyone’s eye.  “But I’ve never been in love,” he said quietly.  “I don’t…what if I’m not good enough for him?”  A horrible voice deep inside him was whispering that maybe he wasn’t _worthy_ of being loved, and he imagined himself sitting all alone in a dark room.  It was so strong, but he had no idea where it had come from.  It wasn’t a memory, was it?  He’d not been that lonely as a child…had he?

   “Oh Harry,” said Fan, pulling him into a hug.  “Listen, I’ve only just met you, but you seem like a great guy.  As far as elves go, I can safely say you’re the nicest I’ve met.” 

   “And you’re never going to know if he does or doesn’t like you,” challenged Rocky.  “If you give up now and don’t even try.”  BB8 zipped back and forth as he bleeped.  “Exactly, you’re wasting time when you could be searching.  BB8 wants to know what he looks like, says he and his friends can help keep an eye out if he comes this way.” 

   Harry smiled weakly, then rubbed his eyes under his glasses.  “Thank you,” he told his friends in a small voice.  _“Thank you.”_

   He couldn’t let his doubt consume him.  He’d been in the funniest of moods all morning; he wasn’t supposed to think like this, Christmas Land was a place of hope and joy.  What were these dark little worms in his mind? 

   He didn’t know, but…they weren’t going to get him anywhere, were they?  They were trying to drag him back, pull him down, but that wasn’t what he wanted.  He wanted to go upwards and forwards and whatever else it took.  He swallowed, and shook his head.  “You’re right, this is ridiculous.  How will I know if I give up now?  I need to keep going.”  He stood up and rolled his shoulders back.  “We need to find him before the HSP do.  So, where do we go next?” 

   “That’s the spirit!” Fan cried, clapping him on the back.

   “Good boy,” Rocky agreed.  “There’s plenty of second level holidays we can try, and even more third.  We can try and touch base with some of my battalion too, see if they’ve had any luck?”

   BB8 bleeped, but Harry didn’t need Rocky to interpret for him this time.  “Thank you,” he said.  “Well, he’s taller than me, with pale skin, white blond hair and silvery grey eyes.  I’m afraid I don’t know his name,” he added apologetically, but BB8 gave several happy chirps and Harry assumed that was enough for him to get the word out.  “Okay,” he said more galvanised than ever.  They were going to find his boy, and then Harry was _finally_ going to learn his name _._ Everything after that, he would just have to leave up to fate.  “So, are you certain he’s not here?” he asked the droid one final time. 

   Rocky listened to his reply before interpreting.  “He says he’s sure, that the only…wait, what?”  BB8 repeated himself, but Rocky just looked more confused.  “He says the only disturbance in the force has been... _you.”_   He blinked and turned to Harry.  “But, that doesn’t make any sense?”

   Harry had to agree.  The force was the power the heroes used in the Star Wars films, it certainly wasn’t something he could possibly have, and he told BB8 much.  But the little droid rattled off another series of beeps, and Rocky shook his head.

   “He says he doesn’t know what you call it, but you definitely have the force, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to come to this land.”  He looked back towards the Millennium Falcon.  “Huh.” 

   “Right, well, whatever,” said Fan firmly.  “What matters most now is that the dream boy is not here, so we need to keep looking.  BB8, any idea where we might find a portal to take us back up?”

   The droid nodded, and skittered off at an alarming rate.  Harry and the others had to chase after him, but he hardly registered where they were going at all. 

   What did he mean, that Harry had the force?  That was impossible.  He was just a simple elf from Christmas Land.

   Wasn’t he? 

 


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note:  Many thanks to Naomi for the French translation. 

    Draco rocketed to the floor with a violent force, rolling immediately and assessing his surroundings with reflexes he could only really attribute to the brutal regime his Quidditch captains had put him though over the years.  He scanned the area, his breath ragged and deep, but as he calmed all he saw was another blasted wooden room, with weak light filtering though the slates at his sides, and instead of dark holes leading to stomach flipping slides, all he saw were unmarked wooden barrels, and dust drifting through the shafts of light as Draco got a hold of himself and steadied his breathing back down. 

   Bones had flown from his lap upon arrival and landed in an upside down heap, but as usual it hadn’t taken him long to scramble upright again shake himself together again.  “Nice landing Sunshine.  Brandon!” he bellowed.  “Where are you, you miserable sod!”

   “Shh!” Draco hissed, flapping his hand in the dog’s direction.  “How do you know we’re safe, that there’s not HSP already.”

   Bones considered.  “I don’t,” he agreed.  “BRANDON!”

   Draco was ready to smack him on the nose, when he snatched his hand back, taking in his companion’s attire.  “Uh, Bones,” he said.  “You’re um, clothes have changed again?”

   He almost laughed, but fear took any humour from the words.  Gone were the cheerful green tunic and jaunty top hat.  In their place were a white shirt, black eye patch and…wooden leg?

   “Bones!” Draco shrieked, and dove down to inspect his recently amputated limb.  As he lifted the sturdy stump in the faint light, Bones merely groaned in annoyance. 

   “Oh, not again?” he grumbled.

   “You…” Draco stammered.  “You lost a leg?”

   “Perceptive, aren’t you?” Bones snapped, wriggling free and shooting up to the doorway out of the room they had found themselves in.  “The question is, what will we have to do to get out of here.  BRANDON!”  He slammed his peg leg against the wooden door. 

   Draco stumbled, and for the first time he realised they were swaying slightly, that they weren’t exactly stable underfoot.  “Are we…” he began, blinking and confused.  “Is this…are we on a boat?”

   Bones turned and squinted at him with his one good eye.  “You’re telling me this-” he waved his wooden leg in the air “-isn’t giving you any clues as to where we are?”

   Draco scowled.  “I said, we’re on a boat,” he said petulantly, crossing his arms.  “Do you expect me to know every random holiday – you said there were hundreds on the third level after all?” 

   Bones considered him a moment, then turned his attention back to the door.  “Why don’t you use those human hands of yours and get us out of here, then you might be able to work it out yourself.”  He grinned wickedly over his shoulder.  “It’s no fun if I just tell you everything.”

   Draco huffed but did as he was told.  There was no sign of Brandon in the small storage room anyway, so they might as well venture outside and see where they had landed in any case.

   There was no lock in place and the door swung outward easily, revealing a wide open deck and a tang of sea-spray in the air that confirmed Draco’s boat suspicions immediately.  The billowing sails looming above them were black, which struck him as unusual, but that was as much time as he got to ponder on the situation. 

   Several men were on deck, all dressed in filthy rags, with hardly enough appendages between them to make a whole person and each armed to the rotting teeth with rusty, chipped weaponry that glinted in the afternoon sunshine. 

   “Yar!” the nearest one shrieked, thrusting the hook where his hand should have been in Draco’s direction.  “Avast me heartys, here be stowaways!”

   “Uh oh,” said Bones, apparently surprised. 

   Draco blinked, not certain he had understood a single word that had been uttered, but in an instant the half a dozen men around him were all yelling at them too, drawing a large crowd swiftly from the rest of the ship.  “Hang on, wait a second!” he said, throwing up his hands as they lurched for him.

   “Lily-livered landlubber!” a large brute with astonishingly sour breath howled in his face as he seized him by the arm and hauled him up onto the higher part of the deck.  There must have been at least fifty men and women all swarming around him now, brandishing their fists and teeth (those that had them) and cursing something fierce.  They didn’t seem to mind Bones as he nipped between their legs, but then he looked just like they did.  Draco’s neat hair and almost pristine shirt certainly set him apart from these ruffians.

   “Just a minute, will you listen to me?” Draco yelled over the cacophony, but it wasn’t doing him a bit of good. 

   “They’re normally friendlier than this,” Bones cried franticly.  “They can’t understand you, you have to talk like a pirate!” 

   “What!” Draco bellowed back at him. 

   “It’s Talk Like A Pirate Land!” Bones tried to explain, but Draco had no idea what that meant, and it did him little good as he was flung to his knees in front of a pair of worn leather boots with the largest turnovers Draco had ever seen. 

   He scrambled to sit upright, and gaped at the man glaring down at him.  He was dressed in a lavish coat and three pointed hat of the same black, worn leather as his boots. Every finger was encased with golden rings, their jewels glittering in the sunshine as the man looped his thumbs through his belt and rocked on his feet.  He had a large, well groomed beard that gleamed black like an oil slick, and care had been taken to weave small beads and – Draco gulped – bones through the hair in decoration. 

   “Arr, so do ye be the scallywag foolhardy enough to stowaway on me ship, yar?”

   Draco blinked, and tried to unravel what he had said, but Bones came to his rescue once again, scrabbling with his peg leg against the slippery decking to crash into Draco’s side.  “We be simply passin’ by, Cap’n,” he said through his panting.  “We be wishin’ no harm, merely the chance to be climbin’ that thar mast and headin’ on up.” 

   “Cooee!” came a familiar voice from above them, and Draco’s heart dropped as he spied the small form of Brandon the leprechaun, swinging from the rigging with several coin purses in his tiny hands.  “Look what I found!”

   Draco’s shoulders slumped as the pirates roared in outrage again.  _Wonderful timing,_ he silently commended the leprechaun. 

   “They be after our doubloons!” the captain bellowed, pointing towards Brandon with malice.  The little fellow looked quite stunned at the sudden attention being directed his way, and began scurrying up the mast. 

   “No, no,” Draco cried anxiously.  “He’s not with us, we weren’t trying to steal anything!”

   “Listen mateys!” Bones tried, darting back and forth as half the pirates attempted to reach Brandon, whilst the others held them at sword point, assuring they wouldn’t try and escape in the commotion.  “We be tellin’ ye true!”

   The captain removed a revolver from his belt, and Draco’s heart all but stopped.  But instead of also pointing that at him, he fired it into the air, making them all jump in surprise.  “We can deal with the wee blighter in a jiffy.  He’ll not be leaving me ship on those little legs, arr.”  He grinned down at Draco, his teeth more gold than bone, and his eyes sharp and narrow.  “In the meantime, I do believe this scurvy dog has an appointment to be keepin’ with me plank.”

   “No!” shouted Bones, but Draco didn’t have time to ask what that meant before he was once again yanked to his feet and pushed roughly forward.

   “Just listen!” Draco yelled, trying to pull himself free as panic overwhelmed him.  He wasn’t sure what a plank was, but from Bones’ reaction he was guessing it wasn’t anything pleasant.  “We came here by accident, we’ll leave if you let us!”

   “The only way you’ll be leaving me hearty,” the captain drawled, clearly enjoying himself.  “Is down Davy Jones’ Locker!”

   Draco still didn’t understand what that meant, but he was now being thrust in front of a plank of wood that extended out over the ocean waves, and cold fear flickered through him.  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

   “Me?” the captain asked with feigned innocence.  “I’m naught but mindin’ me own, humble business.  Ye, on the other hand…”  He thrust his pistol against Draco’s back, and sent him stumbling towards the edge of the plank.  “Ye be takin’ yerself on a jolly little walk!”

   The crew cheered obscenely.  “Um, Bones?” Draco whimpered.

   “You can’t walk it!” Bones cried as the jeering crew held him back.  “It’ll take you to the fourth level!” 

   Draco turned and raised his eyebrows.  The captain seemed almost bored with him, but as he wasn’t trying to make his way back onto the ship, he didn’t seem like he was going to shoot him just yet either.  “Then I can escape!” he countered, not seeing the problem.  The quicker they got themselves away from this foul-smelling lot, the better as far as he was concerned.

   “No, no!” Bones shouted over the throng.  “It’s all abstract down there – without a proper holiday to anchor you, or someone stronger from one of the lands, you’ll just get lost in the ether!  You’ll fade away to nothing!” 

   Draco stopped edging away from the ship, and felt his jaw go slack with horror.  Bugger _that_ for a game of Quidditch.    “Alright, ENOUGH!” he bellowed, channelling all his worry and anger and frustration from the day he’d had to endure.  At his fury, the crew actually quietened down somewhat, and those nearest the front even took a step or two back, allowing Bones to break free and come join Draco on the plank.

   “Somethin’ to say, have we laddie?” the captain enquired nonchalantly. 

   “Yes,” Draco spat, his heart racing.  “I mean… _yar!”_ Between the blood pulsing loudly through his ears and the waves crashing against the hull he could barely hear anything, but he was damned if he was going to get lost forever in some weird afterlife or whatever the fourth level was.  He was finding Harry and they were bloody well going home if it was the last thing he ever did, and if he had to speak like these idiots to achieve that, then so be it.   

   “We be havin’ no time for excuses, little landlubber,” the captain said smoothly to him.  “It’s best ye be keepin’ what dignity ye still got, and walk the plank like a man.”

   That got another rowdy cheer from the crew, but Draco shook his head.  “Look, the only reason we…be comin’ to your – yer – ship is, um… because we were being chased by a hoard of blood-thirsty skeletons.  We were foolish enough to let that treasure hungry miscreant-”  He jutted his chin towards Brandon who was lurking sheepishly in the crow’s nest.  “Pick the destination, but I be swearin’, we only just arrived on your ship, and we’ll make the leprechaun give back everything he stole if you’ll just let us leave.”  He cleared his throat.  “Um, _arr,”_ he added for good measure. 

   It sounded pathetic to his own ears, but Draco wasn’t sure what else to do than to beg.  Harry was relying on him, he couldn’t let him down. 

   Salazar, caring about people was exhausting. 

   But to his surprise, the captain was now looking at him with interest, so his pirate speak couldn’t have been too awful.  “Skeletons, ye say?”

   “Um,” said Draco, glancing down at Bones in confusion.  “Aye.  They be the Halloween Secret Police.”

   A gasp went up through the crew, and Draco wasn’t sure, but it felt like they edged closer to him at that.  “And pray, tell,” urged the captain, blackened fingers dancing on his chin.  “Are they truly blood thirsty?  As hellish as the legends tell?” 

   Draco swallowed, really not sure what the right answer was to not get him forced off the plank, so he just went with honesty.  “Yes,” he said with a nod.  “I mean, aye.  I can safely say they be some of the most horrific creatures I’ve ever had the displeasure of setting me eyes on.”

   There was a beat.  And then the whole ship erupted into cheers.  They threw their hands up and began dancing around, weeping tears of joy.  “And they be followin’ you lad?” the captain asked, pressing closer to where Draco stood, wonder in his eyes.  “They’ll be comin’ here?”

   “Um,” stammered Draco as Bones wined at his feet.  “Maybe?”

   “What if we open up the rum?” a buxom female pirate cried out, waving a pair of cutlasses about.  “Get them portals goin’, yar!”

   Several of her fellows whooped and clapped in agreement, running towards the lower cabin where Draco and Bones had emerged.  A dozen of the pirates burst loudly into song, swinging around the upper deck in glee, whilst others were all of a dither, running about with several weapons in hand, unsure which one to pick.  “This one be sharpest,” one skinny looking chap bemoaned.  “But this one be prettiest!” 

   “Use both!” his mate suggested. 

   “Here,” an older man said tearfully to one of the young girls who didn’t look much older than Draco.  He presented her with a silver knife, engraved at the hilt, which she took reverently with two hands.  “It’s time ye had yerself a proper blade, lassie.”  The girl choked back a happy sob, and flung her arms around the old man.

   The blaggard behind the helm was swinging the wheel this way and that, making the deck even more unstable than it have been before.  _“Yo ho ho!”_ he sang at the top of his lungs.  A chorus of people chimed in around him.  _“Drink up me heartys, yo ho!  Yo ho oh, a pirate’s life for me!”_

   “Uhh,” Draco breathed out slowly, and turning his attention to the captain once again.  “I’m sorry, but…what exactly be goin’ on?”

   “Will we still be walkin’ the plank?” Bones chipped in from beside his ankle. 

   “Ah nonsense, nonsense,” the grizzled captain laughed, beckoning them forwards and away from the sea bellow.  “Ye won’t begrudge a cap’n his fun now would ye?” he chuckled, slinging his arm around Draco’s shoulders and walking him up to where the wheel was still spinning madly.  It was a wonder no one had been thrown overboard yet. 

   “I guess not,” Draco said unsurely.  Bones was eyeing everyone up warily, his peg leg clacking on the floor as he kept up with Draco and the captain.  “So, you actually _want_ the HSP to come here?” he questioned.

   “Why yar, to be sure little landlubber,” replied the captain eagerly.  “We ain’t had a scuffle in so long, it’ll be a pure joy.”

   “A fight!” an excitable youth screamed as he ran past, his fists bunched up to his chest.  “A real fight!” 

   Draco stared open-mouthed at the chaos for a few minutes, before the captain’s grin caught his attention once more.  “Right, well, I’m glad ye be happy,” he said, still fumbling his way around the lingo.

   “And to whom do we own this debt,” he asked with a leering flick of his eyebrows. 

   Draco realised he meant him.  “Oh, um, my name’s – I be Draco – Prince Draco.”  He figured he may as well throw in the title whilst he could still use it.  “And, ye be very welcome.”  If he’d had known all it took to placate a band of blood-thirsty cutthroats was a second band of blood-thirsty cutthroats, he would have nipped on down to Pirate Land in the first place.  “Yer sure ye don’t mind?”

   Bones kicked his foot.

   But the captain shook his head and laughed again.  “Ahh Prince Draco,” he said respectfully.  “This be a rare treat of a day for buccaneers.”  He bowed.  “Cap’n Blackbeard, at yer service.  Name yer price!”  He snapped his fingers in front of Draco’s face. 

   “Oh, no, that’s okay,” Draco stammered.  “We’d just like to head back up to the next level.  We, um, be lookin’ for someone.”

   Blackbeard raised his eyebrows in interest as number of his crew ran past with their arms full of heavy metal balls, ready to load the cannons that lined the sides of the ship.  “What sort of someone,” he asked, leaning on the railing and resting his chin on his closed fist.  “A wench?”

   “A w-?” Draco stammered, before his memory sparked and he remembered what – or who rather – that was.  “Oh, no, nay,” he fumbled, heat rising in his cheeks as the truth of the comparison.  “It’s a friend of mine.  His name be Harry, and he has a scar shaped like a bolt of lightning on his forehead.”  He traced the shape on his own face to illustrate.  “I’m guessing he’s not here, so we’ll have to keep searching more lands, and-”  He pulled out his pocket watch and felt his chest constrict.  “We’re running out of time.”

   The blinding sunshine had lulled him into a false sense of security.  But it was in fact now evening time, and they had less than seven hours to find Harry and get them both home.  _Hold on,_ Draco begged silently, looking up to the clear blue skies as if Harry could hear him that way.  _Hold on, I’m coming, I promise._  

   Blackbeard though straightened up, pointing two jewel ladened fingers his way.  “Ye be needin’ help findin’ yer matey.  This, ol’ Blackbeard can be helpin’ with!”

   A thrill of hope flared through Draco’s chest.  “Really?” he asked, breathless, but the captain had already turned away. 

   “One o ye dogs!  Bring out me chest!” he roared at the hyperactive crew, and a handful of them jumped to comply immediately, disappearing below deck.  They waited no time at all before one of the men was back, his bulging, tattooed arms being put to good use as he heaved up a large treasure chest for Blackbeard to inspect.

   The chest was deposited on a table covered with nautical maps, and once the hulking crewman had retreated again, the captain pulled a key on a chain out from under his frilly shirt.  “This be me personal, favouritest booty, Yer Highness,” he said with a wink. 

   Draco coughed nervously.  “Um, that’s nice,” he said, hoping he wasn’t being flirted with.  After escaping the plank once, he’d hate to be sent right back there for declining Blackbeard’s amorous offerings.  But the captain busied himself with first opening the chest onto a wondrous pile of trinkets, then carefully sifting through them. 

   Draco glanced nervously over to the door leading to the storage room he and Bones had arrived in.  The pirates might have been eager to welcome the skeleton army, but Draco would rather be long gone before they arrived. 

   “Ah!” Blackbeard exclaimed, revealing a scrap of parchment with a flourish.  “Here be the prize we after.” 

   Draco leaned over as Blackbeard slammed the gold-trimmed, semi-circular lid closed, and spread the parchment out so he could see.  Draco lifted Bones up automatically so he could stand on the table and get a better look too, which earned him a gruff “Thanks.” 

   “It’s a map?” said Draco, but it wasn’t like any map he’d seen before, more like a patchwork quilt.  The images shifted, like he would expect of a normal, magical map, and the ink-drawn compass on the corner swung left and right, like a physical one would. 

   “Te yer heart’s desire,” Blackbeard announced proudly. 

   Draco swallowed so fast he almost choked on it.  “I, uh, what?  I mean-”

   “Ye want to be findin’ yer pal, arr?” Blackbeard questioned with a raised eyebrow. 

   Draco coughed a few more times, then cleared his throat.  “Yes, but he’s just a friend, he’s not, I mean-”  He spluttered out a high pitched laugh.  “It’s nothing to do with my heart.”

   Blackbeard turned in bewilderment to Bones.  “He be talkin’ mighty strange this one.”

   “To be sure,” Bones agreed with a nod.  “He is _mighty_ strange.”

   Draco scowled at him, but he was distracted as the map was pressed into his hands.  “No matter,” said Blackbeard good-humouredly.  “Give this here a try.  If the boy be here, in the third level of frivolities, ye’ll see a star on the map.  If not, he be on the second, or first.  See?”

   Draco nodded, his eyes roaming the map hungrily. 

   “If there be no such star, ye must ascend or descend.  Only when ye both be on the same level, will the map be able to guide ye.”

   Draco felt like crying in relief.  They still had a lot of ground to cover, and depending how quickly Harry was moving between lands, it would still be hard to catch him.  But with this, they might actually stand a chance.  “We haven’t a moment to lose,” he said.  “It doesn’t look like Harry’s here, but there are less second level holidays to search through.”  He gripped the pirate by the arm.  “Thank you, so much.” 

   “Cap’n!” the buxom crewman called to him.  “Askin’ yer permission, but-”  She held up some boots just like his, a sheathed sword looped into a belt, and a dashing three-pointed hat complete with a large, green, feathery plume.  “We be thinkin’ the lad needs better boots if he’s to be traversin’ all around the lands.”

   Blackbeard roared with laughter and pushed Draco towards the women.  “That he does.  Get them there shiny shoes off and try those on for size!”

   Draco thought it safest not to refuse, so he allowed himself to cajoled as the pirates swapped over his footwear and kitted him out with a rather lovely rapier.  He wasn’t sure about the hat, but he figured he could always ‘lose it’ in the next land, and, as impractical as it was, it did feel rather empowering as it was jammed on his head. 

   Combined with his black trousers, white shirt and silver waistcoat, he was now informed that he looked like a “Proper buccaneer” which pleased him a bit more than it should have considering he had almost been murdered by these ne’er-do-wells not half an hour previous. 

   “If you’re _quite_ finished with your fashion parade, Sunshine,” Bones drawled.  “We best be getting a move on if you ever want to get back home.”

   Draco would have felt guilty over the wasted time, except Bones had enjoyed a slab of some sort of dried meat whilst he’d been waiting, his tail thumping happily against the wooden deck the entire time.  “Thank you,” said Draco to Blackbeard, shaking his hand.  “For everything.”

   “No,” replied the captain, a mad glint blossoming in his eye.  “Thank YOU!” 

   He charged past Draco with a below, his cutlass already waving in the air as Draco spun to see what was happening.

   The HSP had arrived. 

   The first wave were thrusting their way through the door to the cabin that Draco had also exited from.  The air was suddenly filled with the clang of steal on steal as the skeletons pushed through, the bellows and cheers of the pirates adding a surreal frivolity to the event. 

   “Quick!” Bones cried, leaping into Draco’s arms and pointing with his peg leg.  “Up the mast, up the mast!”

   He didn’t need to be told twice, and he legged it over to the central pole holding up the sails.  From this angle he could now see that the rippling black material was decorated with an enormous skull and crossbones, and Draco was once again glad he’d been able to win the vicious lot over as friends.

   He didn’t stop climbing until he reached the crow’s nest, where he was unsurprised to find an inordinately inebriated Brandon still lurking after the trouble he’d caused earlier.  “We swapped!” he cried in delight, sloshing the skin of rum he’d traded with a squiffy looking parrot for his hipflask of whisky.  The parrot hiccupped in response. 

   “Looks like you’re having fun,” Draco said dryly.  “I guess you’ll be happy to stay here?”

   _“Yo ho ho,”_ Brandon sang blearily, a serene smile on his face.

   “I’ll take that as a yes,” said Draco with a modicum of relief.  He’d rather not be burdened by a sloshed leprechaun with light fingers if he could help it.  He pulled out the map.  “Okay, where to do you reckon?  He’s not on the map at the moment, so he must be in level two…”  He scanned the possibilities, but he slowly became aware of Bones staring at him.  “What?”

   Bones cleared his throat, the sounds of the melee drifting up from the deck below.  “What if we don’t find him?”

   Draco frowned.  “No – what?  No, look we have the map now, it’s going to be fine.”

   Bones sighed.  “Yes,” he admitted.  “The map helps.  But we’ve still only got half a dozen hours or so now, and that includes the time you’ll need to get yourself to whatever holiday takes place today so you can portal to the real world.”

   Draco was staring purposefully at the map, but he could feel his jaw clenching.  “Yes,” he gritted out, shaking his head.  “So, we need to hurry, right?  Pick a land and go!”

   There was a pause, long enough to make him look up.  Bones’ expression was sad and weighty.  “You need to consider the possibility you’ll have to save yourself.”

   He was right.

   Draco knew he was right.  There was no sense in sacrificing both of their lives.  If it came to it, he knew the logical move would be to get out whilst he still had a chance. 

   His mouth opened, but no sound came out. 

   Because it was hopeless.  There was no point in agreeing, and promising to do the sensible thing.  There was no way Draco was going to go back and live a life where he would never see Harry Potter again. 

   His mouth moved again, a pitiful sort of croak coming out, before he gave up and closed it.

   “Do you love him?”

   Draco hadn’t realised he’d looked away until those words snatched his attention right back to his companion’s face.  “Do I-?” he stuttered.  Tears pricked at his eyes. 

   Bones sighed even more heavily than before.  “Alright,” he grumbled.  “In that case, I guess we haven’t got much of a choice have we?  Let’s try our luck up in Bastille Day, huh?  You speak any French?”

   Draco rubbed his eyes and tried to swallow the angry lump in his throat.  _“Oui,”_ he mumbled.  _“Ma mere le parle couramment.”_  

   Bones smiled, and licked the back of his hand.  “Marvellous.  Well, shall we then?”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French Translation: "Oui.  Ma mere le parle couramment." – Yes.  My mother speaks it fluently. 


	14. XIV

 

   After a few hours sat hunched over the stack of books she’d hauled over from the library, Hermione uncurled her stiff limbs with a groan and stretched out her arms.  It didn’t help much with the nausea in her stomach, but as her joints clicked she felt she could maybe walk around for a bit and see what Ron and the Aurors had discovered.

   From what she could tell, McGonagall was right.  People’s belief in a holiday did indeed give the celebrations a sort of magic of their own, and tree rings like this were how that magic was channelled.  It seemed like a holiday had most power on the day it was being celebrated, and she felt it wasn’t a coincidence that the boys had been discovered by Pansy near the Halloween icon. 

   But as to what that ‘power’ actually was, she still wasn’t clear.  And she had also come across several references to ‘channelling souls’ and ‘absorbing a person’s essence’ which she did not like the sound of at all.  However, she had to admit that the idea of it unfortunately tied in very neatly with Harry and Malfoy being comatose but their minds being active.  Their bodies may be sleeping up in the castle, but were their conscious selves up and about somewhere else? 

   And if so, how did they reunite the two back together? 

   She sighed and pulled herself to her feet.  Darkness had fallen, but the Aurors were doing a good job of working despite being restricted in using any magic in the vicinity.  They had set up a whole host of jam jars at regular intervals containing bright blue flames, so the glade was much better illuminated than it had been before with the regular torches.  They had also discovered that potions did not set off the images like wands did, so were using a variety of concoctions to analyse the different rings of tress and test the strength of their magic. 

   They had managed to coax several of the pictures to open in the same door-like fashion as the vegetables had for Ron, but in a controlled manner.  No one had been in danger of being dragged through by an unnatural wind, but when they had tried to see what lay beyond the opening, they had found nothing.  Literally nothing; the absence of anything but a black void that McGonagall had forbidden anyone to touch.  Instead they were currently experimenting sending different probes through (in the form of charmed paper airplanes) to see if they could receive any readings back, but so far they had had no luck. 

   Whilst she’d been reading, Ron had been working on creating a complete list of all the images painted on the bark, using the book she had checked out to cross-reference and work out which holidays they potentially related to.  Pansy had been doing the same, sketching copies of the icons with extreme speed and accuracy that Hermione had to respect.  She had to say, she was impressed with the lack of animosity between the two of them; one of the aims of integrating their ‘Eight Year’ when they had returned to school two months previous was to break down some of those old hostilities between houses, and she was proud to see that being put into action by Ron under such difficult circumstances.

   It was also refreshing to see another side of Pansy as well, whom she had always steered far away from having been subjected to many girls like her in the past at her Muggle school.  Rich, privileged girls who made themselves feel better by putting girls like her down.  But the past year had changed a lot of people, and now Pansy Parkinson seemed more mature, more measured. 

   And, it wasn’t like she was being nice to Hermione, but she wasn’t being mean either.  It was a sort of teasing Hermione couldn’t quite wrap her head around.  She shrugged to herself as she slipped between the trees and went to go find Ron.  If Harry and Malfoy were getting along better now (Why else would they have come out here by themselves?) perhaps they could all be a little bit friendlier to each other in the future?  Hermione would prefer that, she thought, rather than the tedious animosity that had dogged their previous school years. 

   She circled around the third ring for a while before she came across Ron – she hadn’t appreciated just how big it was before.  There were so many trees, all densely packed together.  He looked tired but he didn’t show any signs of giving up any time soon, not with Harry still in danger, and she felt a surge of affection for him.  “How are you doing?” she asked by way of greeting as she approached, then rubbed his back. 

   He bent down and kissed her cheek, then showed her how his list was progressing.  “Slow going,” he admitted.  “But I’ve found at least one possible match for every image I’ve logged so far.  People celebrate some weird arse holidays.” 

   She glanced at the page he held up for her to see, spying such gems as “Sausage Roll Day” and “Make A New Friend Day” and “World Beard Day”. 

   “I’m not sure people really celebrate them,” she said with a shrug.  “I think it’s more a novelty thing, probably designed around advertising campaigns.”

   Ron scoffed.  “That’s not particularly in the spirit now, is it?” he said with a lopsided grin.  “From now on, I demand we celebrate the extremely important and underappreciated Ice Cream For Breakfast Day.”

   Hermione smirked.  “Then I insist we celebrate…”  She scanned down the list.  “Clean Your Floors Day.”

   “I’d rather go with National Bubble Bath Day,” Ron countered with a grin that made her insides warm up, then gave her a loving kiss.  After though, he sighed, the gloom of their situation settling back in.  “Find anything useful?” 

   She leaned her head on his chest.  “Maybe.  Good?  I don’t know.  I feel like Harry and Malfoy’s souls, or whatever you want to call them, their minds?  They’ve been pulled into these trees or something.  Whatever the holiday magic is used to create, that’s where they are.  I just can’t really fathom what that means exactly.”  

   Ron stroked her head through her woolly hat.  “Well, we’ll work it out, and then we’ll bring him back.  Like we did for you with the Basilisk.”

   She smiled at that memory.  She had been so proud when she’d woken from her frozen state to discover Harry and Ron had figured it all out despite her only leaving them a single clue of “Pipes”. 

   “Exactly,” she agreed.  “We’re only just getting started.”

   “Out in public?  How daring.”

   Hermione and Ron both jumped at the sultry voice right behind them, and weren’t surprised to see Pansy with her hands in her pockets and a smirk on her lips.  The blue light made her cheekbones look even more angular and her dark eyes positively black, still, they held a certain impish spark about them. 

   “Do you creep up on everyone like that?” Hermione demanded, flustered. 

   “Only the ones I’m fond of,” Pansy replied without a hint of irony.  “Come on, I’ve got something to show you crazy kids.”

   She led them further back, beyond the densely packed third ring, and indicated the trees there with a sweep of one of her pink, gloved hands. 

   Ron looked back towards the trees of the third ring he’d been working on, then back again.  “This is just the regular forest now,” he said in confusion.

   “That’s what I thought,” Pansy conceded with a tilt of her head.  “But look what happens when you get closer.”  She stepped towards the nearest tree, and sure enough, an image began to form.  “See?”

   Hermione squinted.  “It’s a calendar page?” she said, not sure what that meant.  “The month of November?”

   Pansy frowned at her, then looked down at the bark herself.  “That’s not what I see,” she said in confusion.

   “Really?” asked Hermione.

   “Yeah,” said Ron, moving next to another tree.  “I see the letter P.  Hang on, wait.”  He considered his own tree more closely.  “This one says R?”

   Hermione shook her head.  “I just see another calendar,” she told them, not understanding.  “Except that one is for March.”  There wasn’t a year defining the dates though, she noticed.  Just a month and the numbers one to thirty or thirty one in a square grid.  “That’s strange.  Pansy, what do you see?”

   “Money,” she said simply.  

   Hermione tapped her jaw and looked between the two trees.  “Okay,” she said, then went to stand by a third tree.  “Now I see a September calendar.”

   “The letter H,” Ron supplied with a frown.

   “Still money,” said Pansy.  “Less than on my tree, but more than Weasley’s,” she added slyly.

   Hermione ignored her.  None of the other trees had done this, as far as they had documented (which was a considerable amount so far) everyone had seen the same thing. 

   “What does it mean?” Ron asked.

   She shook her head.  “I honestly haven’t a clue,” she admitted.  “But, I think maybe we should go tell McGonagall.”

   The other two nodded.  “Agreed,” said Pansy, and they began walking hurriedly back into the glade. 

 


	15. XV

 

   Harry thought they were doing rather well.  They had moved up and down through the next four lands with better efficiency than before, helped by the fact that the last holiday they’d found themselves in (American Independence Day) they had run into some of Rocky’s battalion birds and gotten an update.  It seemed like the skeletons were covering quite a lot of ground in the search for his boy, but the fact they were still moving between the lands too suggested they still hadn’t found him either, which gave Harry hope. 

   He, Fan and Rocky had made sure they’d not been seen by any of the HSP in any of the lands they visited; it wouldn’t do for them to be noticed looking for his boy as well.  But he was confident they’d still managed to search thoroughly enough that they had been able to eliminate these holidays as possibilities.  They had left word with people he hoped he could trust so that if his boy visited after they had, he would know someone was out there trying to help him. 

   They may not have encountered any more trouble with the skeletons yet, but tempers had run high in American Independence Land when one or two individuals had tried to start a fight with Fan, claiming their firecrackers were the best in all the lands, far exceeding those of Spring Festival or Guy Fawkes.  Fan had tried to politely inform them that she spent her days making money envelopes, and had nothing to do with the firework warehouses, but in the end it had been prudent to make a hasty retreat before any fists started flying.

   All of which meant it was getting reasonably late by the time they had arrived back down in the third level, and Fan had insisted they stop for a bowl of rice and curry.  Harry felt like they should keep moving, but the truth was he was getting tired, and the food was welcome.  In fact, he had begun to wonder about maybe getting a bed for the night somewhere, rather than trying to trek back to Christmas Land. 

   They were in International Women’s Day Land, which as far as Harry could tell was populated with women from all centuries and countries.  They were currently sitting outside in a charming cobblestone square having finished their dinner, watching ladies of all ages go about their business. 

   Now dusk had fallen, lamp-lighters were at work around the piazza, but it was no less bustling as Harry imagined it would be in the day time.  He had dressed many dolls in his time at Santa’s workshop, but even he didn’t recognise all the styles off clothes that the women wore as they ate their meals or crossed the square by foot or by bicycle.  Skirts of all lengths, trousers, saris, robes, hijabs.  Some travelled in groups, talking animatedly, whilst others read in solitude.  A couple were holding hands over their dinner table, one in jeans and a shirt, the other in a kimono. 

   A young woman dressed in black slacks, a monochrome striped t-shirt and a cigarette hanging from her ruby red lips played an accordion with an air of ease that only came from studious practice, collecting coins of all shapes and sizes in an upturned beret.  Several painters had set themselves up in between the restaurants working on caricature portraits and surrealist ideas and impressionist scenes.  A woman several tables over with iron grey hair twisted elaborately on top of her head argued enthusiastically with her younger companion in a very fine suit, as they both puffed on cigars and swirled large glasses of brandy.

   It was vibrant and oddly calming, Harry found, as he drank it all in over the last bites of his madras.  Once finished, he regarded his companions, and smiled. 

   “Thank you,” he said, breaking the comfortable silence. 

   “For what?” Fan asked.

   Harry toyed with the corner of his napkin as Rocky pecked as some leftover poppadoms.  “For coming with me,” he said, and smiled as her.  “Neither of you had to, but it means a lot to not be by myself.”

   Fan took his hand and gave it a squeeze.  “This is the best adventure I’ve ever hard,” she said earnestly.  “I’d never even left my land before today.”

   “Me either,” agreed Harry warmly. 

   “So thank you for letting us join you,” she carried on.  “It’s been great.”

   “And it’s not over yet,” Rocky chipped in, hopping into the middle of the table.  “Where shall we go next?  I think we’re running out of secondary levels to check.”

   “It won’t hurt to try some of them again,” he said.  “In case he’s been there since we left.  And maybe the first level ones too, we’ve not even been to Valentine’s Day yet.”

   “Good thinking,” agreed Fan with a yawn.

   “But maybe we should see about staying here on level three for the night?” he suggested.  “Start again fresh in the morning?”  After being met with nods of agreement, they settled their bill and began to gather their belongings in order to go in search of a hotel or an inn.  However, they were distracted by a commotion to the right as someone came running into the square, colliding as they did with a group of lawyers and seamstresses. 

   “Sorry, sorry,” the boy cried, practically tripping over himself as he righted his footing.  He had a dog of some sort at his heels; it was hard to tell the breed due to the floral bonnet it was wearing on its head, but it looked like it was following the boy as he stopped and frantically turned a map he had in his hands this way and that. 

   As Harry’s gaze flicked to the boy’s face and took in the white blond hair beneath the striking black hat he was wearing, he felt his heart stutter in his chest.  His bindle fell from his hand and clattered to the ground, causing Fan and Rocky to turn sharply and look at him. 

   “Harry,” said Fan startled.  “Are you alright?”

   For a second, he just watched as the boy spun the map right then left, before raising his strained gaze towards Harry.  Then, he equally froze. 

   “It’s him,” Harry whispered. 

   The moment seemed to stretch out as they just stared at each other in complete disbelief across the courtyard.  Harry didn’t even dare blink in case the boy went away.  _His_ boy.  He was real, he was _right there._

  Rocky fluttered up to Fan’s shoulder, and they both joined Harry in his disbelief. 

   And then the boy moved.

   “HARRY!” he bellowed, breaking into a sprint that startled passers-by and made Harry take a step back in surprise.  The boy didn’t flinch though, and neither did his dog as they tore across the square, skirting past the women who turned to watch him whizz by with fierce determination. 

   Harry barely had time to process what was happening before the boy had darted around the restaurant’s tables and thrown his arms around him.  “Salazar Slytherin,” the boy gasped as he all but crushed Harry with his embrace.  “I was starting to think I’d never see you again.” 

   Harry didn’t know what to think, his mind was a whir and his body was buzzing, but there was one word that managed to catch his attention, and he pulled away from the embrace to look at the mystery dream boy with a frown. 

   “Again?” he repeated. 

   The boy became a bit shy and took a step back, cleaning his throat and rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.  He was…beautiful, there was no other word for it.  Extremely dashing in what looked like pirate attire, which had surprised Harry at first, but he couldn’t say he was complaining now considering how tight the trousers were.  He tried not to blush and shook his head, attempting to prioritise his thoughts.  He may have been pretty, but what did he mean by ‘again’?  He and Harry had never met? 

   “Are you alright?” he asked Harry.  “I was so worried when I couldn’t find you, all these lands are pretty odd to say the least.” 

   “Oi,” groused the dog in a very masculine voice despite his frilly hat.  “No need to be rude now is there?”

   “What do you mean?” said Harry, thoroughly confused.  He really sounded like he thought he knew him, but that wasn’t possible. 

   “Well, Christmas Land and Halloween Land,” he said with a laugh and rolled his eyes.  “Completely mental.”

   Harry felt something cold slip through his heart.  “What’s wrong with Christmas Land?” he asked, hurt.  This wasn’t how he had imagined this meeting going at all. 

   The boy frowned.  “Well, nothing, I suppose.”

   Harry glanced at Fan and Rocky, who both gave him a shrug.  He didn’t have much of a choice, he was going to have to be direct.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “But, you sound as if you know me.”

   The boy’s face fell, and he turned to his own companion with a mixture of fear and shock.  “Well, yeah Harry,” he said.  “That’s why I was looking for you – isn’t that why you were looking for me?”

   Harry shifted, feeling the humiliation rise from his churning stomach.  “Erm, not exactly,” he admitted.

   “Harry had a dream,” Fan said, and Harry cringed.  He wasn’t sure he really wanted to admit that yet. 

   “A dream?” the boy repeated with a frown. 

   “Yes,” she confirmed eagerly, despite Harry’s meaningful look for her to stop.  “So he wasn’t even sure you were real until we saw the wanted posters.” 

   The boy’s face changed again, shifting at once to concern.  “Are you alright?” he asked again, reaching as if to take Harry’s hand but then thinking better of it.  “Were they looking for you too?”

   “Why would they be looking for me?” Harry questioned, offended.  “I didn’t do anything wrong.  Why were they looking for you?”

   The boy considered him for a moment.  “Because I remembered,” he said softly.  “But, but you don’t, do you?”

   Harry was feeling very uncomfortable, like everyone else knew a secret except him.  He looked towards his friends again, but they both shook their heads.  “Do you mean the dream?” he asked.  “Because I remember bits and pieces, I guess.” 

   “No,” said the boy earnestly.  “No I mean the real world, your real life?  If you don’t remember that, why are you moving through the lands?” 

   Harry hugged himself and scowled.  He wasn’t going to tell him the reason he was looking for him was some ridiculous notion of being in love.  “Well of course I remember my life,” he said touchily.  “But I had a stupid nightmare, about you, and everyone told me I had to go find you.  But I’m starting to think that was a bad idea.”

   “So, do you remember me at all?” the boy asked.

   Harry huffed.  “How can I, we’ve never met?”

   The boy looked down at the dog, who shook his head.  “You need to jolt his memory, ask him questions like I did with you.”

   “Harry,” the boy said, turning and focusing his intense silver eyes on him.  “My name is Draco and we don’t belong here.  We come from the Living Land, do you remember?” 

   Harry spluttered.  “Don’t be absurd,” he cried, moving closer to Fan, who laid a protective hand on his shoulder.  “I had never even left Christmas Land until today.”

   “No,” said the boy, Draco apparently, with patience which just irked Harry further.  “That’s just what they want you to think, so you don’t try and leave?”

   “Why would I leave?”  Harry demanded.   “Leave, leave and go where?” 

   “Back home,” Draco replied, his eyes wide.  “Hogwarts, Scotland, is this ringing any bells at all?”

   “No,” said Harry firmly and truthfully.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about or why I even dreamed about you.”  A sick feeling was growing in his stomach.  “You did this to me didn’t you?” he whispered, the humiliation rising alarmingly. 

   “Did what?” Draco spluttered.

   “The dream,” Harry rasped, and Fan squeezed his shoulder tighter.  “The nightmare, you made me have it or something, it’s just a Halloween trick!”

   Draco took a step back and raised his hands.  “Whoa.  Harry, no, that’s not it at all.  Don’t you remember following me out into the Forbidden Forest after the feast, the strange trees that pulled us in?”

   “Why are you saying this?” Harry asked, horrified as the tears welled in his eyes.  He refused to let them fall though. 

   “Probably a Halloween idea of a joke,” Rocky growled angrily. 

   “Keep out of this, bird,” the dog snapped.  “The Prince here is trying to save your friend’s life.”

   “Prince?” Fan repeated.

   Harry shook his head angrily.  “I don’t need saving,” he shot back.  “I was just fine until you started messing with my mind.”

   He stooped to pick up his bindle.  It made him burn with mortification to think about going back to his friends’ disappointed faces when they learned it was all a cruel prank, but right then, all he wanted was to go home. 

   “Harry,” Draco said urgently, but he wasn’t fooling him again.  “I didn’t mess with your mind.  _They_ did!”

   “Who’s ‘they’?” Harry snarled in disgust. 

   “The powers that be,” the dog said sombrely.  “The people that constructed this place, whatever you want to call them.”  He let out a small growl.  “Mayor Abattoir, heard of him?”

   Harry gave an involuntary shiver.  Everyone had heard of the mayor, even him with his spotty knowledge.  He was the worst of everything that Halloween represented, and that was saying something.

   “Why would the mayor want to mess with Harry’s mind?” Fan challenged.  “He’s never met Harry – has he?”  Harry shook his head.  “And it was _you_ Harry dreamed of, not him.”

   “Because we came down here together from the _real world,”_ Draco cried in exasperation.  “We’ve known each other for _years,_ Harry please just think!”

   Harry laughed hollowly.  “That’s preposterous, no we haven’t, I’ve _never_ met you!  Oh, you must have had a fine old day, hearing about me running around looking for you.  Was it just some distraction?  Did you hope the HSP would stop hunting you if I got in their way?”

   “No Harry,” Draco replied, his jaw set.  “I have had a miserable day worrying myself sick about you and narrowly escaping those bastards as I tried to find you.  I could have just saved myself and gone back up, but I couldn’t do it.  You need to remember – think!” he all but shouted.  “We’ve been enemies for so long, but you spoke for me at my trial, you saw something good in me and I’ve been trying so hard to be worthy of that, of our friendship.  Because we _are_ friends, you just need to forget this junk they’ve put in your head!”

   Harry couldn’t fathom why he was going to such lengths to try and confuse and trick him.  “Your trial,” he repeated, still fighting the tears.  “You really are a criminal, aren’t you?”

   Draco covered his face and let out a muted scream.  “Bones,” he pleaded at the dog.  “Why isn’t he remembering anything?  Harry, isn’t this jogging _anything_ for you?”

   “He’s been here too long,” said Bones the dog, looking up at the clock tower looming over the square that read just gone ten o’clock.  Harry realised several of the nearby women were keeping an interested eye on them, and he felt even more ashamed that his humiliation had an audience. 

   “Harry,” said Fan sadly, tugging on his tunic.  “Let’s just go, alright.  He’s not worth it.”

   “Hey,” Draco snapped, jabbing a finger at her.  “You don’t know me, you don’t even know Harry.  I am trying to save his _life_ so don’t you dare get in the way!”

   Harry stepped in between them, bristling with anger.  “She’s my friend, which is more than I can say for you.”

   That seemed to strike a nerve, and Draco’s already pale face whitened further, his mouth dropping open.  “Okay,” he said tersely.  “Okay, maybe we’re not proper friends, not like Granger and Weasley, but please believe me, I am only trying to help you.”

   He looked so sad and concerned, a moment of doubt flickered through Harry’s chest, but he shook his head.  “Nothing you’ve said has made any sense at all,” he told him quietly.  “I can only think you just want to make fun of me, and that…that really is heart-breaking.  I knew it couldn’t have been true love driving me to you, I was a fool for thinking so.  Goodbye Draco.” 

   He lost his battle with his tears at that, but as he was turning to leave, he figured it didn’t really matter.

   Draco’s startled voice came from behind him.  “Wait… _What?”_

   Harry wasn’t going to dignify any further mockery by looking over his shoulder, so he just walked into the square, leaving the bindle behind seeing as it was no longer necessary, hoping there was a portal somewhere nearby that could get him away fast.  He didn’t care where it went right then, he just needed to get away from the face he’d convinced himself belonged to his soul mate. 

   “Harry, no,” Draco called out from behind him.  “We’re running out of time, don’t leave, I might not find you again!”

   Harry spun, fury making his fists curl.  “Then don’t!” he spat.  “I don’t want to be the butt of your joke!  Just leave me be!”

   Draco had stepped towards him, reaching out, distress clear on his features.  Whatever he might have said though, got swallowed up by a scream. 

   Harry’s head snapped around to see with a sickening lurch of his stomach that a mist had rolled into the piazza.  Already, he could make out the first wave of marching skeletons brandishing their weapons and the posters of Draco’s face.  The women around them were jumping to their feet and moving backwards, but like before the skeletons didn’t seem interested in harming them, only in spreading out to show them Draco’s likeness.

   “We gotta go Sunshine!” hissed Bones, and Harry felt a hand wrap around his wrist. 

   “Come on!” Draco breathed, but Harry snatched himself away and stepped back. 

   “No,” he said in disbelief.  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

   Draco glanced fretfully over to the nearest skeleton.  Unfortunately for him, it was just as the woman in front of it pointed over at them, and they spotted Draco was there. 

   “Bollocks!” Draco swore, and drew his sword from its holder with a flourish.  “Harry, get behind me!”

   The skeletons still remained mute, but as one they moved in unison and began advancing on Draco. 

   Harry still didn’t believe him, or want to go anywhere with him in the slightest, but he had to feel sorry for him as they bore down on him with menace.  He felt the urge to fight back as well, but he didn’t know how, or with what. 

   Within seconds, the first of the skeletons were on him, but Draco’s sword was not just for decoration as Harry had initially assumed.  It became very clear very quickly that he knew how to use it with deadly expertise, and bits of bones started flying through the air as he began smashing apart the attacking skeletons. 

   Some women were fleeing the square, whilst others were shouting at the HSP, telling them they had no authority here.  The accordion player’s melody had become rather dramatic.  A lady in a heavy looking dress wearing a rosette saying _“Votes For Women!”_ began ringing a large bell, scowling at the monsters as they attacked.  “You’re not welcome here!” she bellowed, as several others tried to pull them back.

  Draco was fairing okay, but he was still struggling.  Harry wrestled with his own dilemma as he resisted his urge to join in.  This boy was in all likelihood a criminal, the HSP were probably just doing their duty, and besides, he had his dog with him who was viciously pulling apart as many skeletons as he could by seizing their leg bones and shaking them brutally.  But still, Harry felt like he should be helping, not standing watching. 

   The horde was shifting around him, becoming a heaving throng, and Harry lost sight of Fan and Rocky.  He allowed himself to be buffeted as Draco shaped the horde with his battle, forcing people to move with ever swing of his sword.  He looked magnificent, Harry had to admit. 

   But that just made the pain cut deeper.  How big an idiot was he to have believed a dream could have lead him to his true love?  It was pitiful.  How desperate must he have been for affection that he would believe that?  Loneliness engulfed him again, like it had earlier in the day, but now he could very well believe it.  Who could love him?  He was just a boring elf.  He should just go home and forget this ever happened. 

   The noise from the women around him was deafening.  Most of them were yelling at the HSP to leave Draco alone as more and more of the skeletons poured into the square.  Some of the women joined in with the fighting, stopping them from overwhelming Draco as he spun and slashed, defending himself from all angles.  The bell was still ringing, but then it suddenly stopped, and hands pointed excitedly to the sky. 

   Armour clad women were descending on flying horses, brandishing enormous swords and forcing the skeletons to disperse.  “Creatures of Halloween!” one of the huge women bellowed, slamming her fist into her breastplate.  She had a mighty horn slung over her back, and seemed to be commanding the warrior women.  “You are trespassers in our realm and will have respect for our laws!” 

   Draco managed to catch a break, and Harry watched him turn as he panted and dripped with sweat.  The skeletons weren’t done with him by any measure, but the arrival of the warriors had slowed them down somewhat. 

   Harry looked away before he saw him, and in doing so realised he was standing on a manhole cover.  The noise around him was still overwhelming, so nobody paid much attention as he knelt on instinct and heaved it away from the opening.  Just as he had suspected, it was a portal heading downwards; he was getting the hang of this now.  They hadn’t made it as far as the fourth level yet, but he figured anything was preferable to staying here another moment with Draco. 

   “Rocky!” he yelled over the din.  “Fan! I’ve found a way out!  Rocky!”

   Instead though, he unfortunately attracted Draco’s attention.  His face dropped in horror, but Harry didn’t care.  He swung his legs around, and lowered himself into the blackness of the portal.

   “Harry?”

   He looked up to see Rocky flying awkwardly overhead.  The warriors were also dashing through the air on their winged steeds, and he was having trouble getting near Harry.

   “I’ve found a portal!” he shouted up, hoping he was able to hear him and go fetch Fan.

   “Harry _NO!”_ Draco screamed, trying to carve a path through a wall of skeletons.  _“Don’t go down there!”_

   Harry though wasn’t going to risk him pulling him back.  He shook his head, then looked back up at Rocky, who was even higher in the sky now.  “I’ll meet you on the other side!” Harry hollered, and pointed downwards. 

   _“Harry no!  Stop!  WAIT”_ Draco begged, but Harry was done with his tricks. 

   He gave one last, forlorn look at the face he had thought so beautiful, then slipped into the void. 

 


	16. XVI

 

   _“HARRY NO!”_ Draco screamed with everything he had, but it was no use.  Harry gave him a final, heart-breaking look, then dropped down into the nothingness that would lead him to the abyss of the fourth level. 

   He howled in anguish, lashing out at the skeletons still foolhardy enough to keep attacking him, but he _had_ to get to that manhole and go after him, he didn’t care what it took.  He couldn’t be lost, not after everything Draco had been through to find him. 

   “Bones!” he yelled, and he realised he was crying in fear.  “Bones what do I do?”  The warriors were doing a good job of slowing down the HSP, forcing them to submit to them after a great deal of persuasion, and finally Draco was able to break through and race to the portal.  He knelt beside it, and wiped his eyes as he waited for Bones to catch up with him.  “Harry, what have you done?” he whispered miserably to himself.

   He understood that Harry might have had trouble remembering the real world, after all, Draco had also struggled and Bones had found him first thing that morning.  But for Harry to reject him so totally, with such a look of betrayal on his face, Draco wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced anguish quite like it before. 

   He had spent the past two years petrified that every day could be his last, that every letter or embrace from his mother could be the final one if Voldemort decided he was done with them.  Even his father, who had got them into the whole mess in the first place, didn’t deserve to die, and yet all around them, witches and wizards with far superior characters were being slain, and until the Battle of Hogwarts it had seemed utterly hopeless. 

   But they had made it through, and Draco had vowed to turn his life around, to never let himself be controlled or manipulated again, to pursue his own happiness and not simply that which would honour the Malfoy name.  And that happiness, he had realised, had manifested itself in the astonishing form of Harry Potter.

   He said true love had compelled him to search for him, even though he hadn’t even known his name until they had met in the square.  He couldn’t remember his real life, but he thought he was in love with Draco?

   That couldn’t really be it, could it?  Draco didn’t deserve that, not after everything he had done.  For Harry to turn around and confess he loved him back….that would be a miracle.

   He was crouched on the ground next to the circular void, staring hopelessly into the blackness.  The crowd was heaving around him, but they all instinctively knew to give the portal a wide birth, even as they shouted and pushed the remaining HSP back.  The warriors flew overhead on their winged horses, restoring order under the watchful eye of their apparent leader, a broad woman with golden hair and a large horn slung over her back. 

   “What did you _do?”_

   Draco turned just as he got shoved onto his arse by the irate looking Chinese girl that had been with Harry.  “I tried to _stop_ him!” he shot back, scrabbling to his knees as she dropped down to look into the portal, her hands fisted in her long black hair.  “Why didn’t you tell him about the fourth level?”

   “It never came up!” she yelled at him, tears splashing down her face.  “Why would he do this, why didn’t he _know?_   If you hadn’t played your stupid game with him, none of this would have happened in the first place!” 

   Draco automatically reached for his wand, then cursed once again at its absence.  “I know you don’t understand,” he growled, taking a moment to thrash out with his rapier and dismember another skeleton that had managed to get too close.  It seemed some of the women had formed a protective circle around them and the portal, which Draco was grateful for, but wasn’t entirely sure why they were helping.  He decided to just take any good fortune he could muster at this point.  “But Harry and I only came to this world last night, when we were pulled through the Halloween and Christmas portals near our school.”  Whatever else happened, if he made it back home he decided he was going to have serious words with McGonagall about the kind of things that should be cordoned off in those blasted woods. 

   “Then why does he say differently?” the girl argued.

   “Because everyone forgets when they arrive here,” Bones answered, forcing his way between the skirts and legs.  “It’s a long story, and I’ll explain it all in a bit.”  He looked up sorrowfully at Draco from under his pretty floral bonnet.  “Sunshine, I think you gotta go get him.”

   Draco nodded.  He’d been prepared to do as much, which just showed what a bloody idiot love made you.  “Is there any hope we can make it back?”

   Bones considered it, chewing his furry lip with sharp teeth.  “I reckon, maybe,” he said carefully.  “But you gotta keep your thoughts really focused, you can’t think of anything else but Harry, just Harry.  That way, it might just let you find him.”  He sighed.  “But I ain’t got no actual clue as to how it works, it’s all theory.  Sorry.”

   “So, if it’s not a holiday land, what is it?” Draco asked, confused. 

    Bones thought before he spoke.  “It’s the realm of personal holidays,” he said.  “The reality shapes around you.” 

   Draco gulped.  “Okay, so I can control it?” he asked hopefully.

   Bones scratched a paw at the edge of the void.  “If you are able to realise where you are, then yes.  You have to shatter the illusion first.”

   “Harry won’t have been prepared at all,” said Fan, shaking her head.  “He’ll have no chance.”

   “But I will,” Draco countered stubbornly.  “I’m forewarned.  I also remember the real world, and-”  He looked up at the clock tower and felt his chest clench.  “-I know how little time we have to get back there.  I won’t let him down.”

   “Oh, and _what?”_  Draco looked up to see an extremely agitated robin plunge down through the warrior women still looming overhead on their flying horses.  “We should just _trust_ you!”  The bird jerked to a halt in front of Draco’s face so he could jab his beak towards his nose, then flipped over to land on the girl’s shoulder.  “This is all your fault!  He thought he was looking for someone important, someone that needed saving after all those posters we saw.  Now he’s gone and thrown himself down into the fourth level!”

   “I know,” Draco cried pitifully.  “I’m so sorry.”

   “Look,” snapped Bones.  “Yeah, this is bad, but the Prince here ain’t a villain, and Harry’s not in his right mind.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t know where he was going, just that he was going away.  Fresh minds don’t have all the know-how when it comes to the lands, they have to learn.”

   Draco was grateful to have Bones stand up for him, but it didn’t change Harry’s dire situation, and he still felt numb and panicky. 

   “Fresh minds?” the robin repeated.

   “Yeah,” spat Bones.  “Newbies, those what have just arrived.  We ain’t got time to go through it now.”

   “We’ve just arrived though?” the robin challenged.  “And we remembered about the fourth level?”

   “I told you,” Bones growled.  “We haven’t got time now, Draco needs to get going.”

   “No,” the girl said, reaching forward towards Draco as he made to move by the edge of the portal.  “I don’t care if you’re telling the truth, Harry didn’t like you, and he’s my friend.  If anyone should go down there, it should be me and Rocky.”  She shrugged her shoulder to indicate the bird. 

   “And what,” a deep voice rumbled.  “Do you know of the fourth level, Spring Child?” 

   The woman Draco had spotted earlier with the horn, the one that looked like the leader, broke through the crowd and addressed the gaggle by the portal.  She was flanked by two more warriors, each wearing sturdy armour, flowing capes and golden hair of varying lengths.  She took the horn from her back, and offered it to Draco. 

   “Here, Your Highness, I beg you drink after your toil.” 

   Draco took the thing out of politeness, only wincing slightly at the potency of the mead he swallowed.  “Thank you…?”

   “Herja,” said the warrior accepting the horn back off him and drinking herself before passing it back to her fellow warriors.  “Chief Cup Bearer.  Your companion tells us you are in dire need of help.”

   “Now just a minute,” Rocky the robin bristled.  “He’s a wanted criminal!”

   “But,” said the Chinese girl.  “Didn’t you say anything that annoyed the Halloween Secret Police was a good thing?” 

   “Hmph,” grumbled Rocky.  “That was before he broke Harry’s heart.”

   Draco’s insides flipped.  There it was again, this implication that Harry had, what?  Feelings for him? 

   “Your friend is correct,” Herja told Rocky, placing her hands on her wide hips.  “The HSP are a law unto themselves and do not have authority here.  The Seer Bones explained the situation to some of my Valkyrie, and we were inclined to believe him.”

   “Really?” asked Draco.

   Bones snorted.  “Why else do you think they were holding the skeletons back?”

   Herja bent down and stroked Bones’ head.  “Bones is a long friend to the women of the sky, and we know he does not see victims of the Living Land all that often.  Darkling Prince Draco, is it true you wish to return home to your world?”

   Draco glanced at Bones, who nodded back at him.  “Yes Ma’am,” he said as he looked up at her from the ground.  “But I can’t – I won’t leave without Harry.  He’s gone down-”

   “I understand,” interrupted Herja.

   “I still say it would be better if Rocky and I went,” insisted the girl, her eyes imploring at Herja.  “We’re his friends.” 

   Herja crouched down, making her armour clink and squeal, and cupped the girl’s cheek.  “What is your name, Spring Child?”

   “Fan,” the girl replied. 

   Herja smiled sadly, and nodded.  “Daughter Fan, you do your friend a great honour.  But the Darkling Prince must make this journey beyond the third alone.  He is not of this world, and he will be able to use that power of mind to do what is necessary and return them both home.  It would take an army of minds from the holiday worlds to combat the unnatural realm he will face.” She shook her head, and closed her eyes for a heartbeat.  “I wish there were another way.”

   “I can do it,” Draco said quickly, thoroughly sick of letting people down.  “I’m not leaving without him.”

   “Then you’ve got no time to waste,” insisted Bones, nudging his side.  “Go, we’ll handle things here.”

   “Okay,” Draco said carefully, looking around at the group surrounding the manhole.  He was struck with how many people were willing to go the distance for Harry.  He was so loved, so important.  Was Draco really worthy of being the one they all trusted to save him?

   But like Herja said, he might be the only one actually able to do what was necessary.  He was surprised Bones wasn’t, what will his other special powers, but he knew him well enough by now to know he would have spoken up if he was in a position to come.  So that meant it was down to Draco, and he couldn’t back down now. 

   “Okay, he said again.  “No, wait,” he spluttered as he went to move, but had a sudden thought.  “How do we get back, once I’ve found him?” 

   Bones smiled at him, and Draco abruptly felt very humbled to have met such a loyal friend.  “Same as always,” he said.  “You go up, and don’t look back.”

   Draco inhaled, nodded once, then swung his legs into the blackness.  He rose his gaze to Fan and Rocky, and decided he had nothing left to lose.  “What Harry said, about…about looking for true love, did he mean it?”

   The two looked dubiously at each other, but they must have realised that they, and Harry, had nothing left to lose either.  “He thought,” said Rocky heavily.  “That his dream meant that he loved you, even though he didn’t know you.”

   “It was like something out of a fairytale,” added Fan sadly. 

   Draco felt as if his whole world shattered into infinite shards of blinding, beautiful light.  Harry loved him.  He really _loved_ him.  His whole body trembled, but then determination seized him and he threw his shoulders back and his chin up.  “Well,” he said, nodding at Bones, who gave him a salute of confidence.  “What good is a prince in a fairytale, if he can’t rescue his true love?”  He shifted closer to the edge, and prepared to drop.  “I’ll see you on the other side,” he told them.

   “You better,” growled Bones, and with that, he pushed himself over and into the nothingness. 

 

***

 

   There was music in the air. 

   Laughter fluttered like birds in flight, and crystal glasses tinkled in toasts of happiness and good fortune.  Fabric swished as dancers spun like ghosts across the floor, and somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed eleven. 

   Draco moved through the crowds easily, the guests parting for him with bows and curtseys, smiles delighting every face beneath their exquisite masks.  The Malfoy costume balls were always the highlight of anyone’s social calendar, but none more so when their only son celebrated his birthday. 

   He moved towards the buffet, where the children gathered under the tablecloths with sticky mouths and fingers from the coconut rolls and Turkish delights.  They giggled as they peeked out at him, and he held his finger to his lips with a “Shhh” and a wink from behind the mask that covered the top half of his face.  It sparkled green and silver under the candlelight, and had been specially imported from Venice. 

   Girls his age collected around the punch bowl, sipping from glass teacups and whispering behind their hands.  Draco gave them a bow, and they all dissolved in the fluttering of eyelashes and barely concealed hoots of laughter. 

   He was having a marvellous time, as was to be expected.  There was no expense spared on his birthday, and he revelled in being the centre of attention.  He also rather liked being the reason other people were having a good time, he thrilled to see them smile, knowing it was his family affording them such an evening of pleasure. 

   He wandered back towards the masses, watching as the dance changed and people swapped their partners.  The chandeliers glowed gold above the festivities, and Draco allowed his hand to be taken by his mother, decked elegantly in soft shades of silver and pale, pale mint green.  Her hair was intricately twisted and adorned with pearls, and her mask a pure, porcelain white.  “Happy birthday, my dragon,” she murmured as they danced, swirling in the throng to the gentle waltz.  “I hope this is everything you wanted.” 

   “It’s wonderful mother,” he replied warmly. 

   He danced with her twice, then with a number of good family friends; girls and even the occasional boy, and Draco smiled as he knew their parents were all hopeful of a union between each youth that was put forward.  Draco gave every partner his full attention, but he knew none of them were quite right for him, no matter how pleasant their company. 

   It was after his sixth or seventh dance, when his feet and his head began to hurt, that he made his excuses and went to take a breath and refuel himself first at the buffet, then out onto the balcony.  It was a beautiful starry night, but Draco felt fidgety, restless in his best robes, like he wanted the freedom of removing them despite being so excited to be dressed in them earlier that night. 

   More punch, that was what was in order.  He took one last, deep breath of night air, then returned to the ball with a happy smile on his face. 

   Automatically, his eyes began to scan the crowd, and he realised he was looking for someone.  But when he stopped, he had no idea who he was intending to spy.  “What is it sweetheart?” his mother asked with concern as she appeared by his side, placing a hand gloved with lace to cup his cheek. 

_“I hope this is everything you wanted.”_

   Draco pulled at the collar of his robe again, agitated.  “I don’t know,” he admitted.  He felt out of place, or like something was missing.  He couldn’t quite explain it.

   “Are you well?” his mother enquired. 

   Draco laughed ruefully.  “I don’t know,” he said again.  He looked around the room, and pondered what could possibly be wrong.  Everyone was smiling, his father was standing with his peers and they all looked impressed.  Nobody else seemed distressed, and yet Draco couldn’t shake this feeling. 

   This wasn’t everything he wanted.

   How could he possibly crave anything more though?  The ball was extravagant, outdoing all other years; his parents had bestowed so many gifts on him he had lost track of them all; the food was divine and the wine free flowing.  Even the musicians were playing his most beloved pieces, and all his friends were gathered under the one roof to wish him his every happiness. 

   And yet, his heart ached.

   Something was missing, something important, something _vital…_

   “Harry,” said Draco, felling as if cold water rushed over his skin, and suddenly, his mind snapped back into place. 

   “My darling?” said his mother, but she wasn’t really his mother.

   He spun around, taking in the lavish setting of his dream-like world.  This was the fourth level, and Harry was in trouble. 

   “Harry,” he gasped, looking around frantically as he pulled the mask from his face and let it drop to the floor.  “I have to find Harry.”  He left the illusion of his mother, not caring for her concern because he knew she wasn’t real.  None of this was real, and he couldn’t forget that again.  “Harry’s here,” he rasped fervently to himself.  “Harry’s here, and he loves me.  Harry loves me and we must escape.” 

   He slipped through the crowd of happy dancers, feeling like they were blurring around him, losing their focus in the soft light.  They didn’t matter, only Harry mattered. 

   “I’m coming Harry,” Draco promised.  “I’m coming, I won’t let you down again.  Please hold on.”

   He stumbled as a drink was pressed into his hand, and a handsome stranger smiled affectionately at him.  “Many happy returns,” he said, his voice deep and his eyes bright and sparkling.  “I had hoped to perhaps give you my present somewhere a little more private.”

   Draco’s cheeks flushed and in lieu of a reply, he shyly sipped the rich wine, feeling it warm his throat.  “Sounds exciting,” he managed to utter. 

   “Oh, it is,” the stranger rumbled.  “Anything for the birthday boy.  I hope you’re having a good time?”

   Draco smiled over the rim of the wine glass, and managed another sip.  “I am now,” he said.  In fact, he’d been having a wonderful time all night.  He wasn’t sure why he just been trying to leave.  He certainly didn’t want to abandon the stranger now, not when he was having all sorts of wicked ideas.  “Somewhere more private, you said?” he teased.

   The stranger gave him a smouldering smile.  “That’s the idea,” he murmured, touching the edge of Draco’s collar. 

   The contact stirred something in him, something cold and sharp.  “No,” he croaked, thrusting the glass back into the stranger’s hands.  “No, you’re not real.”  He closed his eyes and screwed his fists up so tightly the nails bit into his palms.  “Harry’s here, he loves me and I have to rescue him.  Harry loves me, _Harry loves me.”_

   The stranger melted into the throng, and Draco pushed forward again, aiming for the main door to the grand ballroom.  Harry had to be here somewhere, Bones promised if Draco focused on him hard enough the reality would shape around him, bring them together.  _Harry, Harry, Harry,_ he chanted silently to himself. 

   He managed to skirt around more dancers, more waiters with tempting hors d'oeuvres and more pretty boys trying to give him the eye.  Draco only wanted Harry though, and all other cares drifted from his mind. 

   After what felt like an age, he finally managed to reach the double doors and force his way out.  The entrance hall was eerily quiet after all the commotion of the party, and Draco paused for a moment to take a couple of deep breaths as the doors swung shut behind him, leaving him all alone. 

   The marble floor echoed under his feet, and he looked down to see he was back in his pirate gear, which was oddly comforting.  The familiarity of his home offered a small amount of comfort too, and he tilted his head back to take in the sweeping staircase, the white stone statutes stood on plinths against the walls, the artwork of Malfoys past hanging from the walls and the exotic plants his mother kept to brighten the place up. 

   However, he realised with a jolt something was _not_ familiar.  He wasn’t sure at first, as his head was still swimming from the onslaught of imaginary surroundings, but the more he looked, the more he was certain that there was definitely something out of place.

   He padded over, his boots ringing softly against the shiny floor, and reached out to touch the door he was convinced did not normally reside under the stairs. 

   He considered the cupboard, wondering if its appearance held any significance, but looking around the entranceway he couldn’t see anything else that didn’t belong there.  “Harry?” he whispered, his voice echoing off the walls.  “Are you there?”

   He dropped his hand to grasp the handle, encouraged when it felt warm to his touch.  There was nothing for it; he pulled.

   The world churned around him, and he staggered as darkness fell.  He refused to close his eyes though, and kept chanting Harry’s name to himself, picturing his face and the tentative smiles he had gifted Draco with over the past few weeks.  Harry was his friend, Harry loved him and he was _going_ to find him. 

   The world around him stilled, and it seemed like he was in total darkness, except as he raised his hands in front of him he could see them perfectly well.  “Hello?” he called out, his heartbeat rising as he stared into the never ending blackness. 

   He stamped his feet; the floor seemed solid enough, although he couldn’t see that either.  It gave him the sickening sensation that he could drop at any moment, and fall forever into oblivion. 

   _“Hello!”_ he shouted with a little more desperation, wondering if he had made a terrible mistake.  Had he been wrong to leave his dream version of Malfoy Manor, how exactly did the fourth level work?

   He spun around, and a spec of light dotted the blackness, grabbing his attention and making his heart soar with hope. 

   “Harry?” he called out, his feet already moving towards the source of light.  “Harry is that you?”

   He received no answer, but he broke into a run all the same, the figure in the distance growing larger with each step.  They were sitting down, and as he neared Draco could have cried as he made out a mop of black hair and the glint of a pair of glasses.  Harry’s adorable elf costume had gone, and was now replaced with a scruffy, moth-eaten t-shirt that hung from his shoulders and a baggy pair of jeans.  He looked so dejected, and Draco’s heart contracted. 

   Harry did not look up as Draco finally got within a dozen feet of him.  The ground beneath him had texture, unlike what Draco was standing on, and seemed to resemble dust or sand that Harry was engrossed in drawing in. 

   As he approached, Draco slowed and caught his breath; Harry had still not looked up at him.  Instead, he had written _“Happy Birthday”_ in the dirt, with an oval drawn around it, and he was now adding lines across the top.  Draco thought it resembled a birthday cake, but it was so pitiful he had trouble equating this deafening solitude with a celebration.

   “Harry?” he said softly, not wishing to scare him. 

   Finally, he looked up at him, his green eyes empty behind the glass of his spectacles.  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said hollowly, then went back to his picture. 

   Draco shifted awkwardly on his feet, before throwing caution to the wind and sitting down beside him, angling his sword so it didn’t get in either of their way.  “Why not?” he asked.

   Harry dragged his finger, creating another candle-likeness in the sand.  “Because it’s my birthday.  No one else is supposed to be here.”  He sat back, the candles complete.  “Birthdays are lonely.”

   Draco felt a lump rise in his throat.  Why on Earth would, popular, well-loved Harry Potter say something like that?  “No,” Draco disagreed, and took his gritty hand in his own.  “They’re not.  Harry, we need to leave this place, it isn’t real.” 

   That seemed to attract his attention, and Harry lifted his gaze to focus his emerald eyes on Draco.  He swallowed, suddenly nervous.  If he blew this, he didn’t know what he would do.  “You’re the boy,” said Harry slowly.  “The boy from the dream.”

   Draco removed his pirate hat from his head, feeling it wasn’t the time for it now, and cradled Harry’s hand between both of his own.  “I’m Draco, remember?” 

   “You…tricked me?” Harry said uncertainly, and Draco felt as if his heart cracked. 

   “No,” he said as earnestly as he could without being overbearing.  “No Harry, I know you’re confused, but please listen to me.  I only want to help, I promise, with all my heart.”

   He almost flinched at his own, sappy words, but the truth was Harry made him feel things nobody else had before, pulled emotions out from his very depths that he’d never known existed.  Love was honestly exhausting, but Draco wasn’t giving up on it.

   Harry shook his head.  “I don’t know what to think,” he said.

   “Do you remember meeting in the square?” Draco asked, rubbing his thumb over Harry’s knuckle.  “Or waking up in Christmas Land?”

   He waited patiently as Harry mulled this over, until thankfully he nodded.  “Yes, but…you said that wasn’t real?” 

   Draco thought maybe a change of tactic was required.  He was painfully aware they had less than an hour now to get back home.  “What’s real is that you’re in danger, we need to get out of the fourth level.  It’s too easy to get lost here.”  He looked out into the void, and squeezed Harry’s hand tightly.  “I need you to trust me.”

   “How can I?”  Harry whispered, closing his eyes.

   Draco pulled his lower lip between his teeth.  He had no more time, he couldn’t hesitate or second guess.  “Did you really think you were searching for your true love?”

   Harry’s face contorted in pain, his eyes still closed.  “Please,” he begged.  “Please, no more teasing.”

   Draco couldn’t stand it.  He’d been selfish all his life, and that had made him cruel far too many times.  But he couldn’t take the hurt he was putting Harry through, not any more.  “Harry,” he breathed, his voice barely audible as he leaned into him.  “I’m pleading with you, trust me.  Just this once.” 

   And with that, he touched his lips to Harry’s, bringing them together for their very first kiss.

 


	17. XVII

 

   Hermione was exhausted.  It wasn’t like she was unused to studying all day, but anxiety was shredding her nerves and making every minute stretch out far longer than it had any right to be.

   So far, no one had suggested packing up and resuming their work again in the morning, for which she was grateful.  But the truth was it was gone eleven o’clock and the woods were freezing, despite all their attempts to keep warm whilst keeping spells out of the tree ring. 

   There was an edge of desperation in the air.  Nobody wanted to be the one to suggest they give up and leave the boys to their fate whilst they all went off and took a nap.  And considering what Hermione had just found, she appreciated their dedication tenfold.

   She had given up a few hours ago and transfigured a few logs into a table away from the enchanted trees, then Ron had helped her carry that and then a chair into the centre of the ring too.  It had made her research process speed up considerably, which was lucky if the passage she had just deciphered was accurate. 

   “Professor?” she called urgently to get McGonagall’s attention as she rose from her desk in the middle of the glade.  The book was very old and written in a backwards sort of English that had required a good amount of concentration to interpret properly, but Hermione had persisted on a gut feeling that it would be worth it. 

   McGonagall was already walking briskly over, and Ron and Pansy fell into step behind her.  The two of them had just about finished cataloguing the three layers of tree rings, and had then been assisting the Aurors trying to unravel the mystery of the fourth ring.  It turned out everyone saw something wildly different; they had tested the theory by involving all the Aurors as well as McGonagall, and they reported seeing images that ranged from cake to a pile of letters to a train engine.  It made no sense.

   “I think I’ve found something troubling,” Hermione admitted as they drew closer.

   “Just for a change,” Pansy said cheerily.

   Hermione spun the book around so they could see the section she was referring to.  “I’ve been researching the origins of holidays with regards to magic, and you know I noted several mentions of the ‘claiming of souls’ and other such terms.”  Her small audience nodded, so she carried on.  “Well, I also noted a couple of mentions about time, and the clock striking the hour and such, but then I found this.”  She tapped the paragraph in question, and McGonagall leaned over, adjusting her glasses to read it.

   _“And those souls not reunited by the twelfth chime of the clock, that being the second on the first of the days, therein shall spend all their days in the below, their Earthly claim no longer holding the strength to keep them hither.”_   She looked up with wide eyes.  “Oh dear,” she said.

   “That doesn’t sound good,” said Pansy flatly.

   “No kidding!” cried Ron.  “So, we have until midnight, is that what that means?  So we have…”  He shoved his sleeve and his glove away to find his watch.  “Forty three minutes.  Forty three minutes or their bodies give up and they get stuck wherever they are.  Forever!”

   Hermione held up a hand as some of the Aurors came closer.  “Yes, but I’ve been thinking.  We know these pictures open, and when you got too close with you magic to those vegetables, it tried to drag you in.  I think it’s safe to assume at this juncture that the boys, or at least their minds, were pulled through the Halloween door?”  Everyone nodded.  “So, could we drag Harry and Malfoy back _out_ the same way?”

   “We’ve been thinking the same thing,” one of the Aurors agreed. 

   Her colleague nodded in agreement.  “In theory it should work, but we’d need something to reach out to the boys with, perhaps a way to guide them to us.”

   Hermione wagged a finger at him.  “Yes, yes,” she said, then turned to Pansy.  “How about a bonding charm?”

   Her eyebrows shot up.  “You want to use me to try and find Draco?”

   “The two of you are linked?” another Auror asked.

   Pansy regarded him coolly.  “We set up the charm in case of emergency, so we could find each other.  It’s how I located the two of them last night.”

   The Aurors nodded.  “Yes, we could amplify that, perhaps use it to call Mr Malfoy back.  If they were together, it could help retrieve both boys.”

   “Ms Parkinson,” said McGonagall firmly.  “We have no idea of the risks involved, if you prefer we explore another option-”

   “Do it,” Pansy said, looking her straight in the eye.

   The female Auror held her hand up.  “The Headmistress is right,” she said with concern.  “It could be danger-”

   “Now,” Pansy growled with more force. 

   There was a pause, and then the Aurors scattered, voices rising as they all talked at once, shouting orders at each other in order to get themselves prepared. 

   “What if Harry’s not with Malfoy?” Ron asked Hermione in a small voice, and she shook her head. 

   “This is better than nothing, and if we can save at least one of them, then we have to do it.”  A lump rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down as best she could.  If this didn’t work, she had no intention of giving up.  If she had to, she would go through a damn tree portal herself and go looking for them, wherever they had gone. 

   “Which door should we try?” Ron asked, looking around at the hundreds of possibilities that they had to chose from.  “The Vegan one, seeing as it opened for us already?”

   “It does seem that holidays have the most power on their specific date,” Hermione agreed with a nod.  “But-”

   “Excuse me, Headmistress?”  One of the Aurors called over to them, and McGonagall turned to see what direction they were hailing her.  A lot of the Aurors were still rushing back and forth, but there was a small group huddled by one of the fourth level trees.  They had brought several jars of blue flame over to them, so they were well lit, as well as the tree they were currently inspecting. 

   “Yes?” replied McGonagall as she strode over.

   “What now?” Ron muttered, but Hermione and Pansy walked over in apprehensive silence. 

   “This just materialised,” one of the Aurors said, pointing at the tree. 

   Hermione moved around the group, expecting to see another calendar month, but instead she saw a lion reared up on its hind legs, its paws batting in front of it, and a snake wrapped protectively around its body. 

   “Is it just me,” said Pansy, edging closer with wonder on her face.  “Or does that look like a union of Gryffindor and Slytherin?”

   “You see it too?” Hermione asked.  She wasn’t sure why, but that immediately gave her some hope.

   Pansy nodded, as did everyone else.  “It seems we have an anomaly,” McGonagall commented, touching the markings on the bark. 

   Hermione’s throat had gone dry.  “What if it’s Harry and Malfoy trying to contact us?” she suggested.  It couldn’t be a coincidence, not with a missing Gryffindor and Slytherin on their hands. 

   “Agreed,” said McGonagall, then stepped back from the tree to address the Aurors.  “I propose that we target our efforts to reach the students from here.  Are there any objections?”  There were not, and the preparations for the spells began again in earnest.

   Pansy laid her palm flat against the illustration, and Hermione flinched just for the briefest of moments as she thought something might happen.  But nothing did.  “Are you sure about this?” she asked her, giving her one last chance to bow out if she wanted.  It made sense for her to try and use the bond she and Draco already shared, but Hermione would happily go in her place if necessary. 

   Pansy nodded though.  “Absolutely,” she answered, her voice steady and determined.    

   “Thank you, dear,” McGonagall said, laying a hand on Pansy’s shoulder, which she looked down at, somewhat perplexed.  “Alight,” McGonagall announced in a louder voice.  “If we’re intending on bringing their souls back, they had better have some bodies to find their way into.  We need to go fetch them from the medical ward.”

   “I’ll do it,” said Ron immediately.  “I don’t think I’ll be much help here, but I want to do what I can.”

   “Me too,” said Hermione, taking his hand.  “That way we can each take a body and steer them here safely.  And quickly,” she added purposefully.

   McGonagall nodded, then hastily walked away to assist the Aurors. 

   Pansy took a hold of Hermione’s elbow, and looked her dead in the eye.  “I want you to be in charge of Draco,” she said, all trace of playfulness gone from her demeanour. 

   “Uh, okay,” she said.  “Why?”

   She leaned in close, whispering in her ear.  “Because I trust you,” she said, then swept off to see what the Aurors are doing. 

   “Bloody hell, she’s weird,” Ron said, shaking her head.

   Hermione hummed in response.  “Come on,” she said, turning them both and heading back towards the castle and away from the entwined emblem of the Gryffindor and Slytherin houses.  “We’ve got no time to lose.” 

 


	18. XVIII

 

   Harry had never been kissed before.  He found himself responding automatically, leaning into Draco’s warm mouth, overwhelmed by the shivers that fluttered over his skin.  He felt safe, and loved, and the abyss that had consumed his heart seemed to begin to fill. 

   As if sensing that change, he paused to open his eyes a crack, and realising that their environment had warped dramatically around him, he broke away with an unwelcome gasp.

   The blackness had vanished.  Instead of the sandy floor, they were now sat on a plush sofa in a circular room furnished with a number of other couches and armchairs.  A fire crackled merrily in a hearth nestled into a stone wall to Harry’s left, several windows showed the starry night sky beyond, and hanging from the walls were a number of banners and tapestries depicting the Gryffindor and Slytherin houses…

   It was almost like they were in the joint Eighth Year common room…

   Harry stumbled to his feet, practically tripping over a foot stool as he goggled at Malfoy, who was equally confused as to what had just happened. 

   But not, Harry suspect, and thrown as he was.   

   “What the _hell!”_ he cried with a horror that just seemed to keep washing over him afresh every second or so as he pieced together what was going on.

   He was Harry Potter.  He had been beginning to enjoy a normal life back at school after a year chasing after Voldemort’s Horcruxes and enduring the Battle of Hogwarts.  He had followed Malfoy out after he had fled the Halloween feast, concerned about his wellbeing after once again becoming besotted with the damn fool.

   He was also Harry Potter, elf of the Christmas Land workshop, who apparently had no trouble bursting into song, and telling every bugger who would listen that he was _in love with Draco bloody Malfoy._ “Merlin’s Beard,” he breathed, wanting to curse a lot more than that, but feeling unable to recall anything expletive enough at that precise moment.  “What’s happening Malfoy?”

   He didn’t really need to ask.  He suddenly remembered everything; like a door had been opened and the light allowed to just flood right in.  How could he have forgotten his real life?  Eighteen whole years, almost wiped out in a blink of an eye.  He felt sick.

   Malfoy had told him, in the square in International Women’s Land, but it had seemed so preposterous.  His Christmas life had seemed _so real._ He had been so nearly taken in by a cruel trick…and Malfoy’s kiss had snapped him out of it.

   “Harry?” Malfoy asked tentatively, getting to his feet.  “Do you…recognise me?  Do you remember?”

   Harry spluttered, more at the shock of hearing his first name from Malfoy’s lips than anything else.  “Yes – you’re Draco bloody Malfoy, and I’ve spent the whole day in some kind of weird and wacky land of holidays thinking I’m an elf – an elf!”

   Malfoy looked pained.  “Yeah,” he said softly.  “That’s about the gist of it.”

   Harry swallowed, not quite able to meet his eye, but doing a good job of staring just a few inches off of his right earlobe.  “And you kissed me, and that snapped me out of it?”

   Malfoy sighed.  “It appears so,” he mumbled dejectedly.  “Look, Harry, this doesn’t have to be a big deal, we can just go now and get out of this place, then talk about it later.”  He rubbed the back of his neck.  “Or not, you know, whatever.”

   There is was again, that ‘Harry’ business.  “You’ve been searching for me,” Harry said, sifting through his thoughts aloud.  “You could have left, but you came and found me instead.”

   “So?” Draco snapped, hugging himself.  It was only then that Harry realised their clothes had shifted.  They were both back in their school uniforms, minus the robes, which was a little odd as Eighth Years didn’t wear uniforms.  But there they were; grey trousers, white shirts and Gryffindor and Slytherin ties respectively.  Harry lamented the loss of the pirate outfit Draco had been sporting previously…and at that he had to take a step back both physically and mentally. 

   He’d realised he wasn’t exactly straight in the past couple of years, having had time to analyse a couple of certain crushes, but his groin actually clenched at the thought of Malfoy in those tight black trousers and his shirt hanging unapologetically undone halfway done his chest. 

   Without all his baggage dragging him down, Harry had woken up this morning unabashedly in love with his schoolboy nemeses.  He was weak at the knees to think of him as a swashbuckling buccaneer, but even more so when he knew that he had fought his way through several lands, against the odds, to come and rescue him. 

   “So,” said Harry quietly, his stomach churning as he took a step closer to him across the room.  “I think we need to maybe talk.”

   “About what?” Draco asked uncomfortably.

   Harry’s heart was slamming into his ribcage, but after having his mind played with, it suddenly seemed incredibly important to be honest.  “About how we feel about each other.”

   Malfoy audibly gulped and stepped away, his jaw set.  “We haven’t got time for this Potter,” he rasped, jutting his chin at the grandfather clock stood in the corner that read twenty past eleven.  “Let’s just-”

   “Harry,” he whispered.

   Malfoy heard him though.  “What?”

   He swallowed.  “I like…it’s nice to hear you call me Harry.” 

   Malfoy looked stunned.  “Really?”  Harry nodded.  “Does that mean I’m…” His cheeks flushed, but he coughed, frowned and ploughed ahead.  “Am I Draco in that case?”

   Harry looked at him.  He was so different to the child he had fought with, and now he had his memories back he knew he’d been feeling that way for quite some time.  He wasn’t perfect, he had a lot of issues that was sure, and even in their fledgling friendship Harry knew they had a great deal to work through.  But there was no denying how he felt. 

   “Yeah,” he said weakly, risking inching another step closer.  “You’re Draco.” 

   The silence built between them, and Harry struggled of how to move forward.  But eventually Malfoy – Draco – shoved his hands into his pockets and seemed to rally himself.  “You had a lot to say about me when you were an elf, or, so I heard.” 

   He was adorably pink again, and Harry’s heart swelled.  “You did, huh?”

   Draco rolled his eyes.  “It’s fine, I know Christmas Land makes everyone cuckoo.  Let’s just forget about it, alright?” 

   Harry licked his lips, catching his eye and not letting it drop.  “I can’t say now what it really means,” Harry said, searching for the best words, which wasn’t easy.  “But…I guess that was something, I don’t know, pure?  That my new personality tapped into?”

   Draco rubbed his arm.  “Pure?”

   Harry sighed.  “We have a lot of history, Draco,” he said, getting used to saying the name.  “But, it seems like, sifting through all the conflicting memories, all those things I said were perhaps something I…wanted?”

   Draco’s face lit up with hope, and Harry couldn’t deny the swoop of pleasure that gave him.  It looked like he wrestled with himself for a moment, then he took a step closer to him, bringing them within a few feet of each other.  “It would be something I might…uh…might want too,” he managed to utter.  He looked terrified, and Harry felt the need to step forward and take his hand in reassurance.

   So he did. 

   “You came for me,” he murmured.  “I wouldn’t, I mean, I guess I’m surprised?”

   Draco chewed his lower lip, pulling it in a way that made Harry want to growl and take over the task immediately.  Draco then shook his head sadly though.  “I’m selfish,” he said.  “I didn’t do it because it’s ‘the right thing’ or whatever.”  He scrubbed his face, then looked up at Harry again.  “I did it because I almost lost you during the battle, and I couldn’t bear to face life without you again.”

   Something in Harry broke.  He flung his arms around Draco’s neck and back, dragging him close and pressing their bodies together in a way that felt unnervingly natural.  Draco was a few inches taller than him, but Harry felt perfect as he tucked into his side.  “Thank you.”

   Draco had said something about needing to leave and running out of time, but Harry couldn’t seem to help himself as he drew back, searching those silvery eyes again, and cautiously drew their lips together once more. 

   His was kissing Draco Malfoy. 

   He now knew that hadn’t been his first kiss at all earlier, he’d shared plenty with Cho and Ginny before.  But this was different.  It was rougher for a start; Draco had a day’s worth of stubble that scratched deliciously against his jaw, and there was a desperation to it, the way their hands grappled at each other’s backs like the moment could slip away at any second. 

   They had always had this friction between them, he supposed.  But if he’d told his past self this is where it would have led to, he wouldn’t have believed it in a million years.  “What a day?” he half mumbled, half laughed as he pulled away to look at Draco again, his fingers carding through his impossibly soft hair. 

   “You can say that again,” Draco replied.  He looked like he was mesmerised by Harry, his eyes darting back and forth as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  “Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, his voice strained and his fingers clinging to the back of Harry’s shirt.  “I mean, I wasn’t even sure we were friends, let alone that you might be…gay, or…interested.”

   Harry had to admit he quite liked this shy, tentative version of Draco.  He smiled at his stammered words.  “I think we were on our way to being friends,” he said truthfully.  “And, I think I might be bi.”

   Draco huffed out a laugh, and rested their foreheads together.  “I think I can work with that.” 

   A slow clap rang through the air, grabbing their attention as they both snapped their heads to the door of the common room. 

   “Well isn’t this sweet?”

   Harry’s insides plummeted. 

   They had been so wrapped up in each other, they hadn’t realised they were being crept up on.  At least a dozen skeletons of the HSP had materialised in the common room, and at their centre was a tall, slender man in a butcher’s apron, a meat cleaver in his hand and a blood-chilling smile on his pale, thin lips. 

   Harry didn’t have a chance to react, as Draco pushed in front of him protectively.  They both twitched instinctively for their wands, but whilst this dream-like level might have given them school uniforms, it had sadly failed to equip them with any sort of weapon.  Even Draco’s sword would have been an advantage now, as he certainly knew how to use it, but as it was they were left empty handed as they backed further into the common room, watching as more and more armed HSP filled in to surround them. 

   “Leave us alone,” Draco snapped at the butcher, his hands groping blinding to make sure Harry was still behind him.  He was astonished by uncharacteristic bravery, and might have said something if he wasn’t processing how screwed they really were, looking around desperately to see if there was any sort of escape.  There were windows they could break, and also the corridor behind them that led to the dormitories, but that was a dead end in the real world, so Harry wasn’t sure what they should expect from this reconstruction.  Instead, he took Draco’s hand to show he was still there, and stood with his chest to his back in encouragement, looking around his shoulder.  “We only want to go home. You can have your Halloween Land and whatever else.  Just…let us go.”

   The butcher smiled widely, and a chill ran up Harry’s spine.   His apron was practically dripping with blood, and Harry was under no illusion what he could probably do with the cleaver shining in his hand.  “Nobody leaves,” said the butcher gleefully.  “Not even you.”  He shook his head and moved closer, the firelight dancing on his sunken cheekbones and casting shadows that gouged his face.  “That mutt normally sneaks people out the backdoor, he thinks he’s clever you see.  But you, you he took all around the houses.  I couldn’t fathom why.  And now-”  He leered sickeningly at Harry.  “Now I do.”

   “What difference does it make to you?” Draco fired back.  Harry was feeling at a disadvantage, not understanding who this man was.  But he was apparently trying to keep them from leaving, and Draco’s comments about running out of time came to mind again.  “We remember who we are, we’re not like your other ignorant subjects who don’t have a choice.  We do, and we’re going back to the Living Land!” 

   The butcher tilted his head, like they were interesting specimens on a chopping board.  “You won’t remember anything once the clock strikes twelve, or didn’t my annoying little pest tell you that?”  Draco shifted uncomfortably, and the butcher’s eyebrows shot up.  “Oh, he did,” he said softly, and with delight.  “So, we shall just wait here in that case.  You and you little love can watch the minutes tick by, until – _ding!”_   He splayed his long fingers out like fireworks.  “You’ll forget all about this, and we can set the world to its natural order again.”

   “We’ll forget?” rasped Harry.  Draco looked over his shoulder, and nodded hopelessly. 

   “We won’t even know the other exists, we’ll go back to the lives they programmed for us this morning.”

   “But,” said Harry hopefully, shooting a defiant glare at the butcher.  “I remembered you this morning, I went looking for you!”

   Draco though, shook his head sadly, turning to cup Harry’s cheek.  “We have until midnight on the first day to remember and leave.  After that, our old lives will be gone forever.  We might as well be dead.” 

   The butcher laughed mirthlessly, walking towards them as Harry’s heart turned to ice.  “Oh come, come now Your Highness, no need to be so bleak.  You’ll still be living your lives.”  He leaned in, his breath hot and sour.  “They’ll just be the lives I want you to live.  My little puppets.”

   Harry couldn’t help it; despite Draco’s cry not to, he saw red.  How could they be so close to going back home, only to be thwarted at the last moment by someone purely for his own amusement?  This was their _lives_ he was joking about! 

   Harry lunged for him, which was possibly one of the stupidest ideas he had ever had.  Within a split second the butcher had him by the neck, his back pressed against his bloody apron in a parody of the comforting pose he’d just been holding with Draco.  Except now, he had an enormous knife held up to his throat.

   “NO!” Draco shouted, panic all over his face as he held his hands up in surrender.  “No, please don’t hurt him.”

   The butcher grinned, making Harry flinch.  “Oh I won’t,” he said ominously.  “So long as you sit there like a good little prince, and watch the clock tick down.  Once you forget everything, I’ll let him skip on off back to Christmas Land, and we can take a nice walk back to Halloween.”  He pressed the blade closer to Harry’s jugular, and he gasped at the prick against his flesh and the warm droplet of blood that fell.  “The only question is, do I let you trot off back to mummy queen in the palace none-the-wiser, or, do I put you in my special dungeon, see how long it will take me to strip you apart, piece by piece, and turn you into one of my creations?”

   He indicated the skeletons surrounding them, and the whole of Harry’s insides twisted.  “No,” he stammered and struggled to pull free.  “No, let him live, don’t torture him, don’t make him one of those _things!”_

   The butcher laughed again, amused by Harry’s terror, and he flicked the tip of the blade in Draco’s direction.  “Here’s your choice.  We stay like this, your elf at the end of my knife, as we say goodbye to your old lives at the stroke of twelve, then you can go live your life as a prince, the way you would have if you had never meddled in my affairs.  Or,” he hissed in pleasure, and Harry dreaded what was coming.  “I release him.  You can go to your fate knowing you had the chance to embrace for your final minutes, comfort each other one last time.  But then, your flesh is _mine.”_

   Draco’s hands were trembling, and his jaw clenched, but Harry could see the decision in his tear-filled eyes as he came to it.  _“NO!”_ he screamed, flailing to get free again, no matter how useless it was.  The butcher’s grip was inhumanly strong and he had the knife back at his throat again.  “No Draco, it’s not worth it-!”

   “Let him go,” he said clearly, looking at the butcher.  “And then you can do whatever you want with me after.”

   Harry was pushed forwards and he stumbled right into Draco’s arms.  “No, Draco, no,” he begged, trying to pull away, to go back to the butcher.  “You won’t even remember why he’s torturing you, he’s going to make you a mindless skeleton.  _Let me go!”_

   Draco held him fast though.  “Harry,” he said, his voice breaking.  “I’ll never get the chance to kiss you again.  That’s all I’ve wanted, for so long.  I messed up _so much_ of our time together.  The least I can do is end it right.”

   Harry could feel the tears streaming down his face as he seized Draco and kissed him with everything he had.  _Fine,_ he thought stubbornly.  But now he was free, he was going to find _something_ to fight back with, to escape, he wasn’t going to give up, not until the very last tick of the damnable clock hands took him and Draco away from each other again. 

   He pulled Draco back towards the dark entrance to the dorms, holding his hand defensively.  “You can take him if you can get through me,” he spat, not flinching from the butcher’s flinty gaze.  He wasn’t losing now, not when they had been so close to escape.  There was still time, the clock had only just stuck half past. 

   The butcher laughed at him though, setting Harry’s teeth on edge.  “I won’t have to take him, you pathetic elf,” he gloated.  “Once you’ve lost your memory, he won’t mean anything to you, and you’ll just let me walk out of here with him without so much as a peep.”  He grinned in triumph, but Harry shook his head. 

   “I’ve been obsessed with Draco Malfoy for seven years,” he growled, raising an eyebrow in defiance.  “It’s going to take a lot more magic than you think you’ve got to make me give up on him now, you skinny bastard.”

   He felt Draco squeeze his hand, but it was a gesture filled with futility.  He looked around to see Draco’s eyes shining with unshed tears, his lips pulled in a small, bleak smile.  “Thank you,” he said. 

   “I’m not letting them take you,” Harry uttered.  He’d never allow himself to just forget and go on to a carefree life when he knew Draco would suffer unimaginable pain.  “Not whilst I’m still breathing,” he promised, then turned around to face the butcher and his skeleton legion with grim determination.  “It’s not like I haven’t died before.”  

   “Well,” a voice came from their feet.  “That makes two of us then.” 

   Harry and Draco’s heads jerked downwards in shock to see the black dog standing there.  _“Bones!”_ Draco shouted, dropping to his knees and scooping up the dog in his arms in a fierce hug.  His pretty bonnet was gone now, and in its place was a bowtie around his neck, striped with Gryffindor red and Slytherin green. 

   “Ooh,” the butcher said, shaking his head, his skeletons firming up their ranks behind him to block the exit.  They had formed a semi-circle around the common room, and seemed to have believed, like Harry had, that there was no way out through the dormitories.  But if that was the case, where had Bones come from?  “I’m surprised you had the guts to come all the way down here by yourself mutt.  It’s a little out of your league isn’t it?”

   “Who says he is by himself, Abattoir?”  A woman dressed entirely in black emerged from the shadows.  Harry could just about make out her features from underneath the black mesh veil she wore, and felt Draco straighten in recognition beside him.

   “Mother?” he said, before shaking his head as if to clear it.  “I mean, Your Highness, I-”

   She reached forward and touched Draco’s shoulder.  “It is alright Draco,” she said.  “I understand I am not really your mother.”  She sidestepped him, and came and stood in front of Harry.  “That being said,” she addressed the butcher.  “I will still not allow any harm to come to him or his friend, is that understood Mayor Abattoir?”

   The butcher, or mayor Harry supposed, chuckled at her threat.  “Your Highness,” he simpered with an ingratiating bow.  “I was merely attempting to return him to you, to see you as a family once again.” 

   Harry spluttered.  “He was going to lock him in a dungeon and _torture_ him to death!” he yelled incredulously.

   The mayor shrugged.  “Well, we don’t _have_ to do that,” he said with a roll of his eyes. 

   It hadn’t escaped Harry’s attention that the skeletons were silently drawing in; just an inch or so at a time, but they were definitely getting closer.  “They do not belong here Abattoir,” the queen said firmly.  “I am here to see them personally returned to the Living Land, _before_ the strike of midnight.”

   Draco stood with Bones still in his arms, the worry on his face reflecting Harry’s own feelings.  It was an extremely nice gesture, but they were still only four against a whole army, a fact that didn’t seem to have passed Abattoir by either.  “The only reason you were able to travel down here at all,” he boasted.  “Is because my police followed in the wake of these boys.  Once their memories of the Living Land are gone, and we depart back to the first level, you will have no means of maintaining this existence, and you’ll fade into nothingness.”  He snarled nastily.  “And believe me, I will make you stay behind for daring to interfere with my affairs.  You’ll be lost, and the Darkling Prince will be mine, and the royal family of Halloween Land will fade into oblivion.”

   “You seem sure of that,” the queen said calmly.

   Abattoir curled his lip.  “Without an army of your own, I don’t see what choice you have?”

   “Ah,” said Bones with a nod from his perch in Draco’s arms.  “That’s alright then.”  He let lose an ear-piercing whistle, and Harry flinched backwards as all the windows around them shattered. 

   Walking suits of armour brandishing enormous longswords started clambering inside, and a dozen or so ghosts came flying overhead, dropping heavy pumpkins onto the heads of the HSP, scattering their bones apart and making a squishy mess of the carpet.

   “What-?” the mayor cried in outrage, his head snapping back and forth as his minions took on the clanking suits of armour. 

   “We’re gonna need more space Sunshine,” Bones said, reaching up with a paw to bat at Draco’s chest.  “Quick, think of somewhere bigger.”

   “Why-?” Draco asked.

   “Just do it!” Bones shouted back.

   Harry barely registered the thought before the walls of the common room began falling, cascading down impossibly fast, brick by brick like a waterfall.  The ground was pulled from under them like a rug, and before his and Draco’s backsides hit the floor it had turned to grass.  The furniture was swallowed up into the dirt in a flash, and the ceiling blew away as if snatched up by a powerful tornado, leaving them open to the night air.  

   They were on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, and Harry felt rather saw his clothes change yet again into the Gryffindor team kit.  Draco too was now sporting the Slytherin colours, and he scrambled up with Bones still in his arms, pointing several feet away.  “Quick!” he instructed, and Harry understood why.  Along with their uniforms, they also now had been gifted with a pair of brand new Firebolt 3000s. 

   Draco chucked the first one he picked up into Harry’s waiting grasp, then they both mounted the brooms and shot several feet into the air, hovering out of the reach of the skeletons still wrestling with the armour, as well as the mayor, although the queen was doing a good job keeping him at bay with a jewel encrusted dagger. 

   The HSP were pouring in from every door in the stadium door though, and the ghosts had run out of pumpkins.  The armour battalion was holding its ground, but at the current rate it would be less than a minute if that before they would become outnumbered. 

   “We have to do something!” Harry cried helplessly. 

   “Don’t worry mate,” a voice inexplicably came from above.  “We’ve got you covered!”

   Harry’s jaw dropped as he looked up…and was met with a sky full of wings.

   Rocky was dive bombing into the fray, shooting past them on their brooms with a squadron of robins in his wake to aim themselves at the HSP skulls, sending them toppling from their shoulders to smash into the ground.  The female warriors were back on their flying horses, their battle cry echoing around the stadium as they wielded their mallets and axes with deadly force, their leader stopping to hand Draco a large horn from her back that apparently contained some sort of drink.

   “Your Highness,” she cried in delight.  “It seems you found your love.”

   Harry blinked stupidly as Draco grinned at him.  “It seems I did,” he agreed.

   Reinforcements weren’t just coming from above, and Harry watched on stunned as several stadium doors stopped disgorging skeletons and instead allowed entry to a whole variety of faces, some familiar, some not at all, but all it seemed were hell bent on stopping the HSP. 

   With a mighty roar, an entire crew of grisly looking pirates erupted through the stands, gleefully launching an attack on the horde of skeletons.  A beefy looking guy in a flat cap shouldered his way through a group trying to hold back the doors he’d emerged from, paving the way for a troop of men in women who were so synchronised they were practically dancing, sparks flying from their heals that struck like lightning, shaking the skeletons apart with its blinding force. 

   Harry’s heart lurched in recognition as he spied BB8 racing across the ground, all manner of other droids flanking him as they smashed into any HSP unwise enough to get in their way.  Then, from the other side of the stadium he realised his friends Joe and Bobby were part of a gaggle of elves pelting the skeletons with tangerines and lumps of coal, enjoying themselves immensely from the looks of it. 

   “How you doing Harry?” Bobby yelled with a wave as he sent another skeleton spinning to the ground. 

   “This is so much fun!” Joe added with a grin.  Harry’s friendship with them may have been invented, but he still felt a pang of pride as he watched them coordinate with the wise old owl overhead, driving the HSP down into the ground.

   “We should help,” Harry said, but the warrior woman shook her head and held his arm to stop him descending. 

   “You need to be ready to make your escape, young elf,” she said sagely.  “Let us do this for you.  It will do our people good to stand united.”

   Harry wasn’t convinced, it wasn’t in his nature to hang back and let others fight for him, but the woman’s grip was strong, and he had to admit, their friends definitely seemed to be winning. 

   However, the mayor still had several of his loyal police around him as they charged up the stands, using the chairs to put space between them and their attackers.  Harry gasped helplessly as one of the pirates scrambled over the seats towards them…only to have his hand severed from his arm in one lucky blow.

   “No!” he cried, lurching forwards, but Draco grabbed him and shrugged. 

   “Don’t worry,” he said, nodding at the other pirates who were dragging their fallen friend back, allowing a wave of leprechauns to nip in and clamber up the skeletons’ bony frames and bash their skulls in with tiny tin tankards.  “Look.”

   Harry’s attention turned back to the pirate, who to his shock had already stopped screaming and perversely was looking quite happy now as he was presented with a shiny hook prosthetic, that he cheerfully jammed on the end of his stump. 

   “Pirates like that sort of thing,” Draco explained with a nod to bones, who nodded back proudly.  Harry wondered how the two of them had met, but he didn’t have long to ponder on it. 

   “Still causing trouble I see elf?” a voice from above called to him, and Harry turned his broom to see Fan riding a mighty dragon.  His face burst into an unrestrained smile as she waved at him, then watched as the dragon lowered its tail, allowing the other creatures riding on its back to scamper onto the pitch.  Harry noted a tiger, a rat and a horse before realising they were the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac.  They practically radiated power, and the HSP cowered away from them as they began to move through the battle. 

   “That’s quite the scuffle you’ve got going on there” a squeaky voice slurred, and Harry turned to see a parrot land on the end of Draco’s broom, a leprechaun wobbling off to raise a tankard up to Draco.

   “It is indeed Brandon,” he agreed, raising his horn back at him.  He took another swig, then manoeuvred his broom over to Harry so they were shoulder to shoulder.  He offered Harry a drink, which he accepted in his dazed state, barely registering the potent mead he swallowed down.  “Look at all these people that came for you,” Draco said proudly.

   But Harry shook his head, and touched his fingers to Draco’s cheek affectionately.  “They’ve come for you too,” he insisted.

   But it wasn’t quite over yet.  The mayor was back in the throng, calling his HSP to him for a last stand, fighting off advances from all sides with desperate fervour.  “You will not defeat me!” he was raving, spinning on the spot as he witnessed the carnage around him, flailing his cleaver through the air.  “Stand your ground troops, these fools with rue the day-” 

   Harry was sure he might have gone on for ages; he probably had a whole tiresome speech lined up to keep them there until midnight. 

   If only an entire avalanche of snow hadn’t dropped on his head.

   Harry and Draco’s head’s snapped up, and Harry couldn’t help but grin as he saw a familiar red sleigh hovering amongst the winged horses, robins and witches.  _“Ho ho ho,”_ a voice boomed over the stadium, and an arm dressed in a red coat and black glove waved over the side.  _“Merry Christmas Harry!”_

   “Merry Christmas to you too,” Harry whispered as he watched the sleigh zip up into the night and out of sight. 

   Most of the skeletons had been under the tonne of snow that had smashed into the ground, so Harry and Draco’s comrades had little trouble rounding up the rest and subduing them.  However, there was a disturbance at the centre of the snow mound, and it didn’t take long for something to emerge. 

   “Come on,” Harry mumbled to Draco, and the two of them, along with the animals loitering on Draco’s broom, finally drifted to the ground again.  Several people bounded over to see if they were okay, but Harry was just watching as cracks appeared in the hill in front of them, lumps tumbling down as the top began to break open. 

   “No!” howled Mayor Abattoir as he erupted from the snow.  “No you fools, they cannot be allowed to leave!”   He heaved his body out as people turned and looked up at him.  “Stop them!” he yelled, pointing at Harry and Draco and he scrambled down the side.  “Stop them!  _Stop them!”_

   _“Enough!”_ Bones bellowed as the queen of Halloween town once again stepped in front of him and halted him with the tip of her dagger.  This time though, the mayor was defenceless; he must have lost his cleaver in the snow. 

   “You can’t do this!” he howled, pulling at his dripping wet hair. 

   Bones shook his head.  “You’re so full of hate,” he told him sadly.  “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

   “Oh don’t you start with all that namby-pamby Christmas tripe,” Abattoir sneered.  “Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?”

   Bones shrugged.  “I used to,” he admitted.  “Helped the odd Living soul out when I spotted them, mostly just minded my own business.  But causing you trouble seems to be the only way you’ll talk to me anymore.”

   Abattoir let out a hoot.  “Why does that matter?” he demanded, placing his hands on his narrow hips. 

   “I guess it don’t,” sighed Bones.  “But the thing is, your bloody miserable attitude – not to mention your homicidal inclinations – are starting to infect the rest of us, and you know what?  I’m not okay with that.”

   “Me either,” said Harry, pressing his arm against Draco’s as his heart finally began to slow down again.  He hoped they were out of danger now, and tried not to dwell on what had almost happened.  It wasn’t over yet, but with so much support for their cause, he couldn’t help but be hopeful. 

   “The animosity between lands is getting worse,” Bones carried on.  “I’ve seen it over and over today.  And I say”- his voice rising -“BOLLOCKS to that!” 

   The crowd cheered, and Abattoir looked around in disbelief.  The snow was starting to melt behind him, and the Irish dancers and warrior women were pulling out skeletons one by one to restrain them. 

   “It doesn’t matter who’s more widely recognised,” Bones continued.  “Who’s a ‘proper’ holiday and who’s not.  It doesn’t matter who makes the best fireworks, or if your origin is spiritual or purely trivial.  We’re all in this together!” 

   “Moronic simpletons,” Abattoir spat, flashing his teeth as the horde cheered again.  The snow was making the blood drip sickeningly from his apron as he spun around.  “The lot of you!  We _are_ all in this together; and I’m telling you now, if you let these boys go, you’ll be upsetting the status quo.  Holidays are built on _tradition._   If we allow that to fall, who knows what will happen!” 

   Bones barked at him, and Harry couldn’t help but smirk at how he cringed away.  “Holidays may be built on traditions,” he shouted back.  “But we’ve forgotten that every tradition, no matter how big or small, came from a celebration of _love.”_  

   “Love of family!” Fan cried. 

   “Love of giving,” agreed Bobby, Joe nodding by his side.

   “Love of equality,” announced the warrior leader sombrely.

   “Love of ale!” shouted the big guy in the flat cap, which he tilted reverently at Draco and Harry. 

   “Hear hear!” agreed what Harry assumed to be the pirate captain with the big, black beard. 

   “Don’t you remember love, Abe?” Bones asked, and Harry realised he was talking to Mayor Abattoir.

   For a second, the mayor blinked, then he shook his head in disgust.  “Love has _no place_ in Halloween Land,” he snarled, pointing his long finger down at Bones.  “Halloween is about horror, and I intend to remind everyone of that fact!”

   “What about love of candy?” asked Joe, wide-eyed.

   “Or the love of the beautiful and the macabre?” the queen pointed out, holding her hand over her heart.

   “Or love of costumes?” suggested one of the star-spangled girls from American Independence Day.

   BB8 bleeped, and Rocky, who perched on his head nodded.  “Or love of games.”

   “You had love in your heart once,” Bones told the mayor defiantly.  “You may not remember, but I do, and I won’t stop trying to help you.”

   Draco stepped forward, and Harry let his hand go as he crouched down to stroke the dog’s head.  “You knew him,” he said sadly.  “In the Living Land?”

   Harry had always thought of Draco as being unfeeling, of not having friends so much as hanging around people who he deemed useful to him.  But it appeared he had formed quite a close relationship with Bones over just the one day, and he had to admit it made him feel hopeful.  If he and Draco were going to try and be together, to have a relationship, it was very comforting to see he had some compassion in him, that he was in fact capable of caring for others.

   Abattoir grimaced, as if abhorred by the idea, but Bones looked up at Draco with his big eyes and a small smile.   “We were best friends,” he confessed.  “Once upon a time, when he was just a regular butcher, before he allowed himself to be twisted.” 

   “Lies!” Abattoir shrieked, looking wildly around at the crowd.  “You’ll not spread them anymore mutt!”

   “The only thing that’s spreading is hope,” Bones shot back with a laugh that sounded almost like a sob, and Harry’s heart ached for him.  “Look at these boys.  You tried to pull them apart.  And yet thanks to their _love_ , they trekked across the lands to find one another.  You can’t defeat that, you never would have won.”

   “Yeah!” the tiny leprechaun Brandon cried, sloshing his tankard, and a deafening cheer rang around the stadium as people clapped and whooped and pumped their fists in the air.   

   “Their love is going to grow in this world long after they’re gone,” Bones informed Abattoir with determination.  “But now, it’s really time they left.”

   Harry had completely forgotten about the time, and he looked frantically around for a clock, but there was none.  “How long do we have?” he asked as Draco jumped to his feet and grabbed his hand again.

   “You have a few minutes,” Fan answered, showing him her watch that read ten to twelve.  “So, I guess this is goodbye?”  Her eyes were bright and she fiddled with the cuff of her tunic. 

   Harry threw his arms around her.  “I’m afraid so,” he admitted.  “Thank you, for everything” he said, tears spilling down his cheeks yet again.  This was all happening so fast.  “I never could have done this without you.  Say goodbye to your Nai Nai for me.”

   “I will,” Fan promised, wiping her eyes and grinning. 

   The mayor was still ranting about how this couldn’t be allowed to happen, and how it was going to unravel their very existence, but the queen was doing a good job of keeping him at bay, and everyone else was ignoring him in favour of waving the boys goodbye. 

   Harry wished they had more time.  He wished he had remembered his true self earlier.  He wanted to go back and talk to everyone again, to thank them for everything they had done, but the minutes were ticking away, so he was going to have to be content with the people in front of him now. 

   He felt a tap on his boot.  “It was nice to finally meet you,” Bones said from down on the floor, and Harry crouched to give him a kiss on the head. 

   “You too,” he agreed.  “Thank you for looking after him.”  He didn’t say it aloud, but he’d come to understand that not a lot of people had been willing to take a chance on Draco Malfoy, preferring to use him instead of help him, and Harry was so glad that Bones hadn’t been one of those. 

   He looked up to see Bobby and Joe stumble to a halt in front of him.  “Wait,” Joe panted, confusion on his face.  “What’s all this talk of leaving?”

   “Aren’t you coming home?” Bobby asked in a hurt tone.  “Where are you going?”

   “Hang on,” said Joe, blinking rapidly as realisation dawned on his face.  “Is this him?”

   Bobby’s attention snapped to look at Draco too, and Harry proudly but a little shyly rubbed his shoulder in affirmation, surprised at how quickly he was becoming used to touching Draco. 

   “Yes, this is the dream boy,” he said.

   “He’s real,” said Bobby in awe.

   “He’s bloody handsome,” countered Joe with a slack jaw, and Harry had to laugh as Draco went pink. 

   “I dread to think what you told them,” he mumbled, but Harry just laughed again and kissed his cheek.

   “So, you’re going to Halloween Land with him?” Bobby asked sadly, and Harry felt a pang of regret.  He knew logically he didn’t really know them all that well, but the false memories were still there, lurking underneath his real ones and he still felt extremely sad to realise he would never be able to see his ‘best friends’ again. 

   “No,” he said softly, taking the time to hug them both.  “We’re going to the Living Land, it’s where we belong.”

   “Five minutes,” Bones warned. 

   “It’s okay,” Fan said, stepping up beside Joe and putting her arm around his shoulders.  “We’ll explain it all afterwards, won’t we guys?” 

   The leprechauns and the pirates and the warrior women all nodded and slapped each other on the back, and Harry swallowed thickly.  “Thank you,” he said, and Draco echoed him as well. 

   Harry was about to ask what they had to do next, when he looked down to see BB8 trundle over to them, and Rocky flew up to look Draco in the eye.  “I was wrong about you,” he told him bluntly.  “I’m sorry.”

   “It’s quite alright,” Draco told him bashfully, then looked down as BB8 let off a trill of beeps. 

   Rocky blinked, then cleared his throat to relay the message.  “Apparently, you’ve both got the force – it’s obviously popular today,” he added with a hint of bitterness that Bones laughed at.  “And this one here-” He jerked his head at Draco.  “-needs to tap into it sharpish if you’re going to make it out of here on time.”

   “The…what?” said Draco, but Harry shook his head.

   “I’ll explain later,” he said, looking around at their group of friends.  “Is it going to help us get back?”

   Rocky nodded.  BB8 opened a small compartment to let a mechanical arm shoot out, a blue flame lighting on the end like a thumbs up.  “But I think you need to get moving,” Rocky said pointedly.

   Harry understood.  “I wish we could stay a little longer,” he said.  He was disappointed to leave them, but on the other hand there was no way he was going to let his memory get wiped, not after all he and Draco had endured.  “How do we get back home?”

   Bones raised his eyebrows, and used one of his paws to point upwards.  “Looks like some of that force magic to me, boys,” he said. 

   Harry and Draco turned together, and saw that the central Quidditch goal hoop looming overhead was glowing gold, the blackness of a portal clearly showing from within.

   Draco looked back at Bones.  “You go up,” he said to him, his voice strained.  “And don’t look back.”

   “You got it, Sunshine,” Bones told him firmly, despite the gruffness of his voice.

   “But,” said Draco, suddenly worried, which made Harry’s heart plummet.  “You said the only way out was though a holiday on the day it was being celebrated?”

   Bones barked out a laugh, a real, genuine cry of happiness.  “Where do you think we are?” he all but shouted, then shook his head at their confusion.  “You _created_ this land, here, today.”  

   “What do you mean?” Harry asked, not quite getting it.

   Bones used a paw to adjust his little bowtie, and tilted his head with a smirk on his face.  “This is your anniversary boys.”  Then he winked.  “Congratulations.”

   Harry felt his knees go weak, before he got a hold of his ridiculous self.  Their _anniversary?_    Well.  That sound rather permanent. 

   Draco just gaped at him, and managed a little “Oh?”

   “You must go.”  The queen’s voice rang through the night, and Harry turned to see her and several of the pirates still holding a dejected looking mayor in place.  “Your time is short.” 

   “Good luck!” Bobby cried as several others shouted out similar sentiments.  Abattoir had been gagged by this point, and Harry couldn’t say he was sorry.

   Joe ran forward for one last hug, and then surprised Harry by embracing Draco too.  “Look after each other,” he said thickly through his tears.  “Take care.”

   “You too,” said Harry as Bobby gently pulled him back.

   Draco looked around once more, then locked his gaze with Harry.  “Ready?” he asked, before darting in for a quick, reassuring kiss. 

   Harry couldn’t help but laugh.  “I think so,” he said, wiping his eyes under his glasses, then glanced down to address Bones directly.  “Thank you,” he said sincerely.  “Don’t let them forget, alright.” 

   “Love is the answer,” Bones agreed with a salute.

   And with that the two boys slung their legs over their broomsticks and bolted into the sky.  “How are we going to get through four whole levels in time?” Harry asked as they made a beeline for the Quidditch hoop.

   Draco shook his head.  “I don’t know,” he said with an odd smile.  “But a feel like…I think we’re closer than we think.”  He reached across the gap between them as they approached the portal, and as the threshold loomed, the boys once again joined hands.  “Do you trust me?”

   Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat.  “Yes,” he growled with determination.  “We’re going to make it through.”

   And with that, they plunged into the darkness, with nothing but love and hope to guide them on. 

 

***

 

   Hermione glared at her watch, not sure if she wanted to cry or be sick or curl up in a ball and demand sleep take her into oblivion.

   One minute.

   They only had one minute until midnight tolled, and still, there was nothing.

   They had managed to coax open the sigil of the entwined lion and serpent, the symbol of Gryffindor and Slytherin united, and the edge of the heart-stopping blackness was ringed with a bright golden glow that showed… _something_ was happening.

   Pansy had allowed the Aurors to enhance hers and Draco’s bonding spell to its very limit, and she was stood before the void, stripped of her coat and all outer accessories, sweating profusely with her jaw clamped and her fists bunched.  Her feet were literally melded to the forest floor, and she was muttering to herself of the verge of tears.  _“Come on Draco, come on.  Come on Draco, you can do it.”_

   Ron was pacing back and forth behind where Hermione avidly clock-watching, yanking his hair and moaning desperately.  _This wasn’t happening,_ Hermione told herself.  _It had to work._

   Thirty seconds.

   _Okay, right,_ she thought, refusing to succumb to the panic in her chest or the lump in her throat.  If it didn’t work she would stick to her plan.  She’d go through one of the image-doors, maybe this Gryffindor-Slytherin one if they could keep it open.  She would organise some sort of tethering spells first, recoil, snap-back and summoning as well.  She would implement tracking traces and panic pulses, and then she would go and _find_ them.  She would-

   _“Urgh!”_ Pansy cried, doubling over, and McGonagall rushed to her side, grabbing her around the ribs, freeing her feet from the ground and hauling her upright. 

   “Ms Parkinson, are you alright?”

   Pansy though raised her head, a manic grin on her face as the sweat dripped from her eyelashes, her shirt clinging to her body as she gasped forcefully, then looked Hermione directly in the eye. 

   “They’re _he-re,”_ she sang, then collapsed to her knees.

   Hermione made to run to her side, but a sudden force blasted her – and everyone else in the vicinity – back several feet into the trees and bushes and whatever other flora the forest threw in their way. 

   Hermione smacked her head into a mercifully image-free tree, but it still hurt like nothing else, and she rolled to her side with stars twinkling in her eyes.  She grunted, hand to her head, immediately struggling to her feet and stumbling forwards to make sure Ron was okay.  But the sight that greeted her made her stop dead.

    A light pulsed from the tree they had been working on, and she shielded her eyes as… _something_ blasted outwards and into the clearing.

   She wasn’t the only one to be scrabbling to their feet amidst the plethora of Aurors, but at the sight of Harry’s lifeless body arching as it inhaled violently, she was definitely the first to make it back into the glade.

   “HARRY!” she screamed as she skidded to her shins, seizing the lapels of his dress robes as his eyes flew open and he jerked and flailed horribly.  “Harry, I’m here, it’s Hermione, you’re okay!”

   He gulped and gasped and flung his hands about, but slowly, he managed to draw his focus in and settled on Hermione’s face.  “Uhm-” he uttered.  “Uhm – Uhmione?”

   “I’m here!” she croaked, unable to stop the sob that rattled from her chest.  Ron was abruptly by her side, one arm around her shoulder and the other hand gripping Harry’s free hand as if determined never to let him go again, which Hermione couldn’t say she disagreed with.  

  “Harry!” he shouted, wiggling his fingers in front of his face before grabbing Hermione again as she sagged in relief.  Harry was waking up, it had worked, _it had worked!_

   _“Draco?”_ he rasped. 

   Hermione blinked, and sat back on her heels.  “Yes,” she said, glancing over Malfoy’s prone form, which was currently being cradled by Pansy.  “Malfoy’s here?”

   Pansy looked horrendous; hair dishevelled and pale skin slick with sweat, body trembling, dark circles under her eyelids; in fact her eyes and fingernails were actually bleeding, presumably as a result of the bonding spell.  But she looked over from where she was crouched like some feral creature, unabashed joy emanating from every limb as Draco – Malfoy – surged to life, gasping for air and pawing at his fellow Slytherin’s throat. 

   “Oi!” she shouted, seizing his lapels and giving him a good shake.  “It’s me, knock it off!”

   Draco snapped his attention to her immediately, and Hermione turned back to Harry.  “Hello?” she tried tentatively.

   He thrust forward, flinging his arms around her.  “I thought you were a dream,” he rasped, fumbling his hands at the back of her scarf. 

   “It’s all real,” she cried happily.

_“Harry?”_

   Hermione, Harry and Ron all looked over as Malfoy sat up, Pansy’s arm still around him to help him balance.  He looked exhausted but his eyes were clear as he looked at Harry – and that was when she realised he hadn’t called him Potter.  And Harry hadn’t called him Malfoy, a point he proved as he gasped his name again and scrambled clumsily to his feet.

   Hermione took in as he ignored them, McGonagall and all the Aurors standing around watching on with an air of relief, but also confusion as Harry launched himself and tackled Malfoy back to the ground, both boys hugging and practically crying with laughter.

   “What’s going on?” Ron asked.

   “I’m not sure-” Hermione started to agree, when her words were cut off with a startled gasp as Harry took Malfoy’s face squarely between his hands…and kissed him.

   _“What the-!”_ Ron screeched, and several of the Aurors looked away awkwardly.  Hermione felt Pansy drop beside her and pat her on the knee.

   “Told you,” she said in a tired but happy voice as she wiped the blood from her face and hands, then rested her head on Hermione's shoulder.  She barely noticed she was so transfixed on the snogging boys before her. 

   Ron had his hands over his eyes.  “Oh Merlin,” he whined.  “Has it stopped yet?”

   “Erm,” said Hermione.  As it turned out though, the two of them did chose that moment to come up for air, and she was startled by the rapt way they looked into each other’s eyes. 

   “We did it,” whispered Harry.

   Malfoy nodded.  “We’re here.”

   Harry pulled him into a tight embrace, stroking his hair and his back with such tenderness Hermione found herself quite taken aback.  Just what had happened to them in the past twenty four hours?  “They must have had quite a day,” she murmured in disbelief, but felt Pansy shake her head.

   “I think it’s been a long time coming,” she countered, which Hermione was definitely going to have to ask her to elaborate on, but not now. 

   For now, they had got their friends back and they were safe. 

   She pulled Ron’s hands down and dragged him into a hug.  “I think Harry might be a bit gay,” she giggled into his ear.

   “Yeah,” he said faintly.  “I got that.  But…with Malfoy?  Really?”

   “Oh don’t be such a bore,” Pansy told him with a poke of his leg.  “You do realise you’re going to have to get used to us now, right?”

   “We are?” Ron asked meekly.

   She nodded and gave his cheek an affectionate pinch.  “I’ve become quite fond of you both,” she said with a wink, then indicated Harry and Malfoy.  “And any idiot could have told you these two were inevitable.”

   Hermione wouldn’t have said so until that moment, but watching them now as they wrapped themselves together, heads resting against one another as McGonagall crouched to talk quietly to them, Hermione had to agree. 

   “Urgh,” she moaned tiredly, and flopped onto her back, Ron following on one side, and Pansy on the other.  Her whole body ached, she was pretty sure the back of her head was bleeding, and she doubted she would ever feel warm again.  “Happy World Vegan Day,” she said. 

   It was Ron who started laughing first, the dissipating adrenalin making him hysterical, and the girls followed not far behind him.  They shook and cried, rolling into each other until Harry and Malfoy came barrelling on top of them, making one giant hug out of the awkward pile of limbs.

   “McGonagall told us what you did,” Harry said once they had all found some solid ground to sit up on, huddling together as a group.  “Thank you.”

   “Ahh,” said Pansy with a wave of her hand.  “How else were we going to spend World Vegan Day?”

   “How indeed,” Harry agreed, shaking his head and leaning in to give Malfoy another kiss.

   Hermione wasn’t sure what this meant for them now as the five of them stiffly got back to their feet.   McGonagall herded them towards the castle with strict instructions to go to the medical wing, and Hermione watched Harry and Malfoy – Draco – take each other’s hands and walk on ahead.  Ron slipped his hand into hers too, and Pansy rubbed her shoulder against hers as they followed. 

   One thing was for sure – their lives were never going to be the same again. 

 


	19. Epilogue

   Draco awoke wrapped in warmth and contentment.  The duvet was plump and heavy over his body, and he squirmed under it, nestling against the many pillows.

   The flames in the fireplace of his new bedroom were still crackling merrily away, charmed to go on through the night, and through the curtains he could see a sliver of bright sunshine illuminating the falling snow. 

   After everything he and his family had suffered last year, he had been eager to choose himself a new room at Malfoy Manor to distance himself from all the bad memories.  And he had never been gladder of the move from his childhood single bed to the double he was now sprawled in, as he had been the previous night, when he and Harry had tipsily tumbled into it in a mess of tangled limbs and never ceasing kisses. 

   They had shared a room at school for some weeks now, but there was nothing quite like making love when you knew for absolute certain that you were the only ones on the entire floor, and had absolutely no risk of being interrupted.  Draco rolled over now, slipping his arms around his boyfriend’s naked, sleeping form, and easing them gently together in an affectionate embrace. 

   Harry mumbled and shifted against him, and Draco smiled, closing his eyes and listening to him breath as he rested his head on his warm chest.  He had moved slowly and tenderly inside him last night, their bodies as unified as their hearts as they had come to completion together.  Draco knew it was still only early days, but he was pretty certain he was totally, head-over-heels in love. 

   He traced his fingertips up and down Harry’s side, wondering if he should wake him in a more intimate fashion, or let him sleep after the rigorous workout he had put him through last night.  But his touch must have alerted Harry through his slumber, and his green eyes fluttered open sleepily. 

   “Hi,” Draco said quietly, sweeping his thumb across Harry’s cheek.  “Good morning.”

   Harry rubbed his face and snuggled closer into Draco’s side.  “Not just any morning though,” he said through a yawn, then kissed the hollow of Draco’s throat.

   The truth was, no morning was just ‘any morning’ anymore.  Ever since their adventure at Halloween, Harry had bought his very own copy of the book Hermione had unearthed from the library, the one listing every single holiday celebrated throughout the world. 

   Each morning, the boys would turn the page and find out what day they were waking up to, and make sure to celebrate a little of each holiday in some way, even if it was only tiny.  There were an extraordinary amount of days that celebrated different foods, so the kitchen house elves had become used to the two of them popping up on their door with strange requests which they were only too happy to help them fulfil.  Harry had introduced Draco to square dancing, crosswords, and the ways of the ninja and the daleks.  They had worn brown shoes and faux leather and even spent one day the previous week trying to communicate only in Arabic. 

   That day had ended with a lot more kissing than talking. 

   But today they didn’t need to look at the book (which was a good job, as it was currently somewhere under the bed after Draco had rather enthusiastically tipped his case upside down in pursuit of certain items last night).  Today was extra special.

   “Merry Christmas,” Draco said, kissing Harry softly on the lips. 

   It turned out, they had both kept their imposed memories from their time down in the Holiday Lands, and therefore Harry was now the experienced expert when it came to anything Christmas related.  He’d used his new skills to wrap most of their friends presents twice as prettily in half the time, become the champion of snowball fights and could now sing every carol ever written in perfect key.  He had been looking forward to this day ever since they had returned to the Living Land, and Draco was pretty certain he knew why.

   He felt the same way when he thought about next Halloween.  He guessed that it made Harry feel connected to the friends they had had to leave behind, to the life he’d never really lived, but lost all the same. 

   Draco hoped they could make their first Christmas together especially good in order to combat any melancholy.  They were staying with his mother, but would also be visiting the Weasleys, and Pansy had insisted on joining in too, much to Draco’s amusement.  But for now, it was just them, and Draco wanted to make the most of it. 

   “Merry Christmas,” Harry told him back, and they spent several minutes kissing, hands roaming leisurely, touches gentle and full of promise.  Before Draco could get too distracted though (which was all too easy when he was faced with a naked Harry) he pulled away and brushed Harry’s hair out of his eyes. 

   “I’ve been thinking about your present,” he began tentatively.

   Harry pretended to pout.  “I’ve only got the one?” he asked, with puppy dog eyes that looked ever bigger without his glasses on. 

   Draco swatted his arm.  “Oh shove off, you know you’ve got dozens,” he teased, unable to stop himself smiling as he thought about Harry unwrapping them all later.  “But, this is something different, more of an idea I wanted to talk to you about.”

   Despite all their good intentions, their relationship hadn’t been entirely smooth going, which really was only to be expected considering their troublesome history.  They’d been seeing a counsellor in Hogsmeade though, something they planned to carry on doing, and the best advice they had learned from her by far was that communication was key.  If they didn’t talk, they couldn’t know what the other was thinking, and as hard as Draco found that, he had to begrudgingly admit it worked. 

   So he had toyed with the idea of working on this idea himself, but when it came down to it, he knew he wanted to do it with Harry by his side.  His gift, he hoped, would be in the suggestion itself.

   “Sure,” said Harry as he stroked his fingers through his hair.  It was one of his favourite little habits, and Draco loved it.  It gave him confidence then as he took a breath, and considered what he wanted to say. 

   “I’d like to organise something for you, for us,” he said, chewing his lip.  He’d already done a lot of research, however he knew there would be a lot more work ahead.  If so, he was fully intending on utilising Granger’s brains, the unequivocal highlight of their new friendship, for sure. “But I need help.  And, well, I wanted to know if you thought it was a good idea first?” 

   Harry nodded.  “You can tell me anything Draco,” he said, knowing he needed that little bit of extra encouragement.  It worked.

   Draco traced his fingers along Harry’s collarbone, then stopped procrastinating and looked him in the eye.  “I was thinking about our anniversary land,” he said.  “The one we created.”  They had been back to check; the icon of the snake and the lion was still etched into the tree bark in the forest.  “How we were able to control it when we were there.”

   Harry’s eyes widened in a way he couldn’t quite read.  “Yeah?” he prompted.

   “Well, seeing as the doors open on the date of the holiday, I was thinking for your Christmas present we could work out how we could maybe go safely back through, so we could spend our anniversary visiting our friends?”

   Harry stared at him for a second, then squealed and buried his face into Draco’s neck in what he hoped was a happy reaction. 

   “Um,” he said nervously.  “Is that a good thing?”

   Harry re-emerged grinning broadly.  “I was maybe thinking about the same thing,” he admitted, and Draco’s heart leapt. 

   “Really?”  Harry nodded and bit his lip.  “Wow.  So, that’s a yes?”

   “That’s a hell yes,” Harry promised. 

   “But it’s still my idea,” Draco warned him, holding a finger up.  “I suggested it first, so it’s still my present, technically?”

   “Shut up and kiss me, you idiot,” Harry chuckled, dragging him back in for another kiss. 

   It was going to take some time, Draco knew that.  He never wanted to be in the same position as they had been before; losing their memories and almost being stuck down there forever.  But he missed Bones a lot, and had thought almost every day about Blackbeard and his crew, and Tommy and his bar.  Harry talked enough about Fan and Rocky, and especially Bobby and Joe, for Draco to have guessed he’d like to see them again, and after hearing all about it he was pretty desperate to go see Star Wars Land. 

   But they had nine whole months until November 1st, which would give them plenty of time to work up to a visit they could return from.  And in the meantime, they would continue celebrating every day for the holiday it was, taking joy and delight in the smallest of traditions, and being grateful for the opportunity they had been given. 

   But most of all, they would do it together, just how Draco had always dreamed they might, but never really dared hope they would.  They had their whole future ahead of them, and enough holidays to last a lifetime. 

 

The End

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, please review! To discover more of my writing, visit www.helenjuliet.com


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